COMBINING THE PLEASANT AND THE USEFUL

The number of tourists arriving in Azerbaijan will double over the next 10 years reaching 5m people. This forecast is based on a joint research by this country's Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Azerbaijan Institute of Tourism (AIT). This figure is quite realistic given the government's plans to support the development of different areas and types of tourism, increase the number of tourist facilities and improve the quality of services they provide. This is the reason why this sector is supposed to increase its share to 2.5 per cent by 2024 from the current 0.9 per cent. 

Types of holidays 

According to experts who took part in the research on "Azerbaijani tourism in 2023: objectives and tasks ahead", the optimistic outlooks for increase in the influx of tourists to Azerbaijan rests on analysis of statistical data from this area over the past 10 years. In particular, these include the increased number of hotels, companies, the volume of investments in this sector, the profits received and others. "The declared figure (up to 5m tourists by 2024) was derived on the basis of an average scenario for the tourism sector development. In general, it also reflects the growth dynamics of the entire sector," AIT Vice-President Eldar Aslanov told R+. 

According to him, this involves increasing the amount of hotel rooms and service staff in this country and creating new tourist towns, for instance on the Caspian Sea shore. In addition, the fact of tourist season extension is also taken into account. Thus for instance, Azerbaijan used to have only one tourist season in summer two years ago which started in May and ended in September. The opening of the summer-winter tourist complexes Sahdag and Tufan has added the winter season. This naturally makes it possible to attract new tourists especially in view of the plans to increase the number of hotels and services provided in those complexes over the next few years. In addition, very much importance and attention will be given to developing sports tourism. No doubt, a contribution to this will be made by the 1st European Games and the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games to be held in Azerbaijan in 2015 and 2017 respectively. It is also planned to hold other international competitions," E.Aslanov said. 

There are also big plans to develop cultural heritage, restore and popularize more than 7,000 historical monuments, create the necessary infrastructure for the guests' convenience (guides, catering facilities etc.) which will also help attract tourists. As Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Qarayev earlier said, the last inventory of historical monuments was taken in Azerbaijan in 2001 when 6,308 monuments were put on the list. Over the past four or five years, another 1,705 new monuments have been added to the list and passports have been prepared for more than 100 historical monuments. According to A.Qarayev, passports must be provided for all historical monuments. "Not only must the Culture Ministry engage in that. It takes a lot of effort to issue passports for 8,000 monuments and therefore all state structures must be involved in these efforts," the minister said. Alongside this, he said, one of the problems to solve is organizing the protection of historical monuments. Local public should also take an active part in such efforts. 

Another type of tourism expected to develop intensively in the next few years is medical tourism. In this context, they point out President Ilham Aliyev's directive signed in September on additional measures to pace up the social and economic development of Naftalan town. It is planned to increase the number of rooms in Naftalan's sanatorium Cinar, improve available infrastructure and other things. "As part of efforts to develop medical tourism, it is planned to improve the living and medical treatment conditions around the hot springs in other regions of the republic, in Duzdag salt caves in Naxcivan, the heart sanatorium in Bilga settlement and others," said E. Aslanov. In addition, efforts are being taken to increase the influx of tourists to Azerbaijan and to reinforce such types as ecotourism, educational tourism and others. 

Need for personnel 

So, the plans are certainly optimistic but, in order to turn them into reality by the said deadline, the government will have to initiate or at least support a lot of various infrastructure projects and give more attention to developing human resources. 

However, according to the outlooks in the "Azerbaijani tourism in 2023: objectives and tasks ahead", the number of hotels in this country and beds in the hotels is to treble within 10 years reaching 1,500 and 100,000, respectively. The number of travel agencies will double reaching 350. Let it be noted that in 2013 alone, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued 57 licences for hotel business and 74 licences for tourist activity. Considering A.Qarayev's promise that Azerbaijan will have no hotels working without licence by the 1st European Games, their number may increase essentially by as early as the end of this year. "Licence issuance to recreation centres and hotels is a permanent process in Azerbaijan. Every day, I sign a document to issue licences to some three or four hotels and tourist organizations. Consideration of documents from licence applicants received by the ministry through the Internet or directly is permanently under way. The situation on the ground is examined and some 15 days later, the decision is taken to issue or refuse to issue a licence," A.Qarayev said earlier. 

Meanwhile the said paper predicting the number of hotels to increase over the next 10 years (to 1,500), gives special attention, according to experts, to opening hotels and holiday houses for tourist with moderate means. There are five-star hotels functioning nearly in every region and it must be so as long as they have their own customers. However it should be kept in mind that only 30 per cent of all hotel beds in each region should be in five-star hotels while the remaining 70 per cent should be earmarked for medium- and low-income tourists. This category also includes student and youth tourist areas, hostels etc. State programmes currently in effect do not include the construction of such facilities but the government is ready to support businessmen's initiatives along these lines. 

Meanwhile there is one more problem that officials and experts also pointed out more than once: the quality of services at tourist facilities, especially at those low-star hotels. Thus for instance, A.Qarayev complained about the low standards of services at places of recreation in the country's regions and urged the owners of such facilities to improve the situation. 

Yet the thing is that it is not all that easy to solve this urgent problem. In the academic year 2013-14, all higher educational institution and technical secondary schools will turn out only 1,029 specialists majoring in tourism, with higher educational institutions, secondary technical and vocational schools accounting for 272, 480 and 277 specialists respectively. According to statistical data, 9,000 workers are currently employed in the country's tourist sector and their number is forecast to increase to 75,600 within 10 years. At least 20 per cent of them will have their diplomas from higher educational institutions, 30-40 per cent from secondary technical and the rest from vocational schools. 

"Our students start working part-time in their second year of studies. There is a very high demand for them. We know that the tourism sector needs at least 2,000 skilled personnel today. Yet given the training facilities available to the AIT, it can only graduate some 3,000-3,500 people with higher education over the next 10 years which covers only one fifth of the need. A similar situation is taking shape at the lower levels of training in the tourist sector. In this context, the research suggests expanding the institute's capacities to be able to graduate up to 2,000 specialists per year," E.Aslanov added. 

He thinks it would be more reasonable for businessmen investing money in the construction of a tourist facility to specify its required staff in advance and submit a request for the institute of tourism to train them. "This is a rational approach as we find it important for the graduates to be able to get jobs and for the tourist facilities to be provided with highly skilled staff and managers which will have a direct impact on service standards and the image of the country's tourism sector as a whole," the AIT vice-president said. 

And all these are new facilities. Improvements in the infrastructure and services will ultimately not only provide the declared annual influx of 5m tourists but also have an essential impact on the growth in domestic tourism thereby keeping at home quite a lot of money normally taken abroad by Azerbaijani citizens.