29 March 2024

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WINTER RESORTS OF AZERBAIJAN

Azerbaijan needs to optimise pricing policy to increase competitiveness of winter resorts

Author:

01.01.2019

Thanks to the Shahdagh and Tufandagh ski resorts in the Gusar and Gabala regions, winter tourism became part of the tourism sector of Azerbaijan about six years ago. Now tourists have a good chance to spend a full-fledged winter holiday in Azerbaijan. Recently, the seventh winter season has started at Shahdagh, which is ranked the third in popularity among the CIS countries.

According to experts, Azerbaijan took a good start in this new direction of recreation tourism. However, given the speedy development of various types of winter tourism in neighbouring Turkey, Georgia and Kazakhstan, where the companies purposefully reduce prices and improve the quality of services, Azerbaijan needs to focus more on this area in order to keep up with competitors.

 

Popular resorts

During  the past winter season of 2017/2018, 120 thousand people visited Shahdagh, which is a record indicator in the centre’s entire history. Half of the visitors were foreigners including the prevailing number of tourists from the UAE and Russia prevailed, as well as a considerable number of guests from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Great Britain.

About 30% of tourists visiting Shahdagh are skiing enthusiasts, who are free to use the lifts, 18 ski and snowboarding trails. Fans of other types of outdoor activities can make use of aero-skiing, quad biking, flying on tandem paragliders, as well as take part in a zipline (downhill on a rope), rent sleds for children or skates for the ice rink. In total, tourists can make use of about 15 types of winter activities.

Another ski resort, Tufandagh, is developing very successfully and can accept about three thousand people every day. The total length of ten ski trails is 17 km. There are also three gondola and one cable lift-telemix: the first lift is at altitude of 950 m above mean sea level (MSL), while the last one is at 1920 m MSL.

In general, according to guests and experts, both resorts are no different from those in Switzerland or Germany in their infrastructure and level of service.

"Azerbaijan is experiencing an intensive development of sports tourism. The Shahdagh summer-winter resort has already become a world-class ski centre, and another ski centre, Tufandagh, which opened shortly after Shahdagh, is also developing," said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev during his recent trip to Lankaran.

Obviously, the access of tourists to modern infrastructure and various types of winter entertainment makes Shahdagh attractive for foreign guests. Leading Russian analytical agency TourStat has recently confirmed this fact by ranking the Shahdagh Resort the third best among the top ten ski resorts of the CIS countries in popularity among Russians during winter holidays. "Tufandagh is in the Gabala region of Azerbaijan, in the top ten of resorts and ranked 9th in popularity," TourStat rating table, which is based on an analysis of booked tours in the winter season 2018/2019, reports.

Natalya Nikiforova, head of customer service at Russian travel agency Intourist, has a similar opinion, noting that in 2018, her company was actively promoting trips to the popular Shahdagh ski resort in Azerbaijan. "This is a modern resort with a rather developed ski infrastructure, which is operated by an Andorran company. There are modern lifts produced by the Austrian company Doppelmayer, 14 ski trails with a total length of 16.8 km, two freestyle zones and its own ski school. Although the elevation difference at Shahdagh is relevantly small, this spot becomes increasingly popular among the tourists," Nikiforova said.

 

It’s all about price

Nevertheless, as far as the rating growth of Azerbaijani ski resorts is concerned, they have also excelled the counterparts in terms of relatively high prices in the region. According to TourStat, the average cost of vacation at Shahdagh and Tufandagh, including accommodation and catering, costs Russian travellers $100 per day. This does not include fees for lifts, rental of ski equipment and other ammunition, entertainment, training fees, etc., which would cost an average tourist at least another $35-50. By standards of post-Soviet countries, a vacation in the ski resorts of Azerbaijan costs slightly above average rates. Slightly lower prices for hotel services are in the Tufandagh due to its proximity to the largest tourist hub of Azerbaijan, Gabala, located 4 km from the ski resort, where one can find about two dozen hotels, inns and recreation areas with ranging prices.

However, according to experts, high prices are a completely natural phenomenon in conditions when demand exceeds supply. Fortunately, after the devaluation of the Azerbaijani manat, the rates have become more acceptable for foreign guests.

By and large, the increasing number of wealthy Arab tourists also affects the prices in Azerbaijan. The fact that booking a room in winter resorts is problematic even for a month in advance, especially on holidays and weekends, means that the resorts do not have problems with workload. So, according to the available data, reservations for the New Year holidays were made long before the temperatures dropped in the northern regions of Azerbaijan.

 

New opportunities

According to experts, the development of winter resorts in Azerbaijan will be more successful if we focus on more massive, budget tourism, primarily reducing prices for hotel and related services. In particular, a similar strategy is part of the development project for the Shahdagh Resort, which has been partly developed thanks to state funds. As part of the project, two phases of four have been implemented so far. During the implementation of subsequent stages, private investors are invited to complete works on the construction of new hotels and other necessary infrastructure, which ultimately, as the supply grows, should affect the pricing policy optimisation.

Meanwhile, each year the winter resorts of Azerbaijan improve the package of services offered, adding completely new and interesting types of entertainment and recreation. Also, special attention is paid to improving the management of these resorts, attracting highly qualified specialists to manage hotels and centres.

Experts indicate that Azerbaijan has a potential for further development of winter types of tourism. For example, in the Gakh region, which has very favourable climatic conditions for the creation of a resort. The emergence of new internal competitors will certainly have a positive effect on the activities of existing winter recreation centres.

Obviously, the available ski resorts in Azerbaijan provide for an economically efficient direction of tourism, which requires a closer attention to details. According to estimates based on the experience of European countries and China, the economic factor of winter resorts can have a very high multiplier effect. So, if a dollar spent by an average tourist creates $5-6 in related industries of a city, then in ski resorts the proportions are different: $1 spent on a lift brings $5 direct income to the resort and $15 to the economy of the city or region as a whole. This fact fully justifies the current expenses for the construction and maintenance of winter tourist centres in Azerbaijan, promising considerable profits in the future.



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