Azerbaijan set to build on post-Covid GCC tourism boom

Azerbaijan set to build on post-Covid GCC tourism boom

After the unprecedented fall in tourism in 2020 and 2021, the number of arrivals in Azerbaijan from the GCC region has been increasing fast enough to return to pre-pandemic levels by as early as the end of 2022, according to Florian Sengstschmid, CEO, Azerbaijan Tourism Board.

“In 2019, 3.2 million tourists from around the world visited Azerbaijan, [but] the number dropped to 1.1 million in 2021,” Sengstschmid told Zawya. “However, post-pandemic, the GCC is the fastest-recovering region among our core markets. For example, tourists from Saudi Arabia in the first quarter of the year have already exceeded the total number of arrivals in 2019.”

The Azerbaijan Tourism Board (ATB) is the national promotions body established under the State Tourism Agency.

Sengstschmid said that Azerbaijan received more than 32,000 travellers from the GCC last year and more than 22,000 arrivals in the first quarter of 2022 alone. The number of tourists from Saudi Arabia has increased by 20 percent compared to the pre-pandemic figures.

“Overall, the GCC is the largest market for us after Russia and Turkey and, therefore, it is very significant for us. Within the GCC, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait are the biggest markets. We expect the tourist flow to significantly