Exclusive Interview with Bahruz Asgarov, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Azerbaijan Tourism Board
So much to explore all over azerbaijan multicultural landmarks ancient monuments find your own path through fascinating history and culture with color and texture that excites and enchants unique and unrivalled arts and crafts uncover new dimensions and embark on an unforgettable journey that could last forever azerbaijan take another look good morning i have mr baharus with me with the deputy ceo of azerbaijan tourist board flarus how are you doing this morning thank you very much uh doing great uh and um very happy joining you today to speak about azerbaijan and our upcoming projects in india thank you for your time it's pleasure talking to you this morning uh varus with a master degree in international event management uh is currently deputy ceo in the tourist board but uh worked as in a company as incoming mice director i believe and also in baku european games uh committee so yes the multi-dimensional person i would say you have you have walked in different areas you have quite good knowledge in different areas to handle this tourist board i believe and also ministry of culture you have worked for for a year yes great so you can imagine my first question would be how you are handling this situation this trying time it indeed it was very challenging this past years was the start of the pandemic but we are very hopeful about 2022 because we already see um increasing the numbers we already see people um booking more trips to azerbaijan and not only to azerbaijan we can see this tendency all across the world obviously with the vaccination program being rolled out a lot of people getting vaccinated and we see the generally the numbers of uh covet cases decreasing which also opens a way for tourism and travel we oh and there there have been a lot of challenges during this period i mean it was very um it's not usual for people uh when when they when someone tells them okay no you cannot travel anymore and that's why the uh we we during this period we've also tried to do a lot of projects to accommodate uh this desire of the people to see more and to to learn more about the countries before they can travel i'll also speak about this project a bit later but during this pandemic period we've also been doing um a lot of projects with our partners in different countries to keep azerbaijan on top of mind for travelers and also to make sure that the travel restrictions to azerbaijan are easier and they are not as challenging as in other some in other countries where one day you can travel to the country the next day you cannot travel to the country because because the regulations change constantly so in azerbaijan it was very straightforward from the very beginning in the beginning we started off with a very little number of the countries let's say with five countries main uh let's say main potential markets like turkey and russia uh and the only requirement to travel to azerbaijan was uh to have a pcr test or and to get vaccinated and if you had this two items uh ready you could travel to azerbaijan and since 2021 we've been increasing the number of the countries uh that can travel to azerbaijan and right now uh more than 90 countries can um i mean the citizens and the permanent residents in their countries can actually travel to subversion uh with uh presenting the uh the covet vaccination uh certificate about uh recovery uh of kovit uh 19 and with the negative pcr test they can all try out azerbaijan and with this recent additions we also have india uh on the list which is a very good news for us and for our partners in india and we are very excited about it indeed it is a good news that india is also started the international flight all the international flights are now allowed to come in and out of india okay when you said vaccinated so do you respect all the vaccines produced by different countries what about india uh it's actually very easy um the vaccines that have been recognized by the world health organizations uh and at the list you can also see on our azerbaijan trial website because we updated on regular basis so the vaccines such as uh sputnik uh karunavak uh uh pfizer and the other john johnson and other others uh with basically if you are considered full vaccinated then you can travel to azerbaijan that's great tell me what are the marketing strategies you have opted during this time to promote the to this boat beside the part beside participation in international travel shows when the pandemics hit us uh we were actually seeing great numbers from india before the pandemic um if we look at the statistics of 2019 we can see we could see that uh 70 there was a 767 percent increase uh from india to azerbaijan in the number of travelers and it actually showed great interest to azerbaijan so when pandemic started we were also trying to accommodate this interest from the indian market towards association so we started off our project called azerbaijan 101 which is an online platform uh giving um a lot of information about the tourism as of ashan and also presenting different products we so the travel expert and the travel operators can roll into the program can pass the course and upon completion of the course they get tested and once the they basically pass the test they get a certificate as azbaj tourism expert on azerbaijan and um it has been very popular among um let's say indian tour operators because the most certificates were actually received uh were given to the indian tour operators and indian travel agencies which was also very promising um this was one of the projects we did back then also on our um websites um such as adobe and salam bakuto.travel which is the website for baku city tourism we started off the virtual tours tours so the visitors of the website could actually experience what azerbaijan has to offer in terms of tourism product the sightseeing and so on and so forth we've been also uh cooperating very closely with um with our global marketing promotional campaigns in cooperation with renowned international trial platforms such as expedia we go skyscanner the nata and others we've been very close to working with our uh travel and trade partners um and organized a lot of b2b meetings for them uh so that they can get in touch with local companies in azerbaijan we've been also uh organizing a lot of fan trips both uh mainly uh virtual during this period but we already started having uh actual fun trips to azerbaijan as well and during this um press and and the trade fund trips they could learn about azerbaijan they could actually see the product and get in touch with the local companies here proceed with their let's say projects also uh we've been supporting a lot of uh filming uh in azerbaijan and um specifically for popular tv shows that were dedicated to azerbaijan and also there were a lot of culinary shows there were a lot of travel shows that have been traveling to azerbaijan and actually shooting what it has to offer well tell me something as you have very clear idea and and knowledge in mice let me let me ask you a question do you think your country is equipped enough to handle large mice group and what you are offering for incoming miles uh group absolutely um azerbaijan i mean azerbaijan is a great destination for both leisure and my tourism and as i said um if we look at the numbers coming from india uh the main chunk of the tourists we were getting uh from indian market were actually the mice the mice groups uh because um the the country uh and also the tour operators here in the travel agency here in azerbaijan they were very well equipped uh to handle different mars requests apart from that i have to mention that azerbaijan in baku and in the regions of azerbaijan such as in kabul and other places there are a lot of five and four star three-star in international brand hotels such as like four seasons uh fairmont uh now we are having um one of the a great hotel coming up ritz carlton is opening him in in baku uh also um infrastructure is very because it is very well because government has been investing a lot in uh developing the infrastructure further uh and also connecting it to the regions so it's not only baku when you come to see azerbaijan but also it's also the regions that you can easily travel which is one and one and a half hour uh away from baku uh we've and also in baku there are a lot of um activities that groups who travel to azerbaijan can experience starting with the master class up to like vip experiences and so on and so forth great beside india i understand india is a very big market for you what are the most important inbound market for your country just to give you a brief information azerbaijan tourism port was established in 2018 and the the moment we uh we were established we did a quick factor analysis to understand what are the potential markets for azerbaijan and um among them were russia uh european countries such as germany turkey india china and of course gcc countries from the middle east and we and after we implemented our different marketing complaints and different collaborations we saw a significant increase from each of the region and after the pandemic now just because the borders are open uh compared to 20 to 2020 we can see a significant increase from each of the markets again uh obviously it's not at the same numbers uh as in 2019 uh when we hit the record number of three about three million tourists azerbaijan but we can see a significant increase compared to 2020 in 2021 and we continue seeing uh uh this um trend in 2022 already uh and for this year our main markets um are the again turkey russia india china germany and and middle eastern countries such as saudi arabia united arab emirates do you speculate the number of incoming tourists in 2022 is is it going to reach at least 50 percent of prick of it we see 2022 as the start of the recovery for azerbaijan i mean um yes if compared to 2019 we don't have the same numbers from each country but uh speci in in specific cases such as saudi arabia we can actually see increase more than the pre-pandemic period so we actually see a lot of interest from different markets and we believe that this trend will continue especially with the indian market we see the moment the borders got opened a lot of true operators and our partners in in india contacted us and we've been also in close contact with them we already started working on different projects how to position azerbaijan for drone in indian market and also what products we have to offer because azerbaijan has been known for in india mainly as mice and leisure uh my mice let's say market but uh we we have a lot of plans to also position azerbaijan as the great destination for families for leisure travel for a single uh woman trap i mean uh the woman group travel and so on and so forth your sustainable tourism projects are very interesting can you highlight a couple of for our leaders from the actual from the very beginning we've been very sensitive about this topic about the sustainability and the positioning of azerbaijan as a as a destination that uh with a lot of curated experiences um we i wouldn't say azerbaijan has been marked as a mass tourism destination from the very beginning and in this regards we've been continuing our projects i want to give i want to speak about some of them uh which i believe are very exciting uh one of them is um the bird watching uh project that we've been working closely with the loch international birthday expert or ornithological society and we have established a certified bird watching destinations like hinalik and laza in cuba and the gustar regions in the north it's not very far from uh baku it's only an hour and a half drive and also uh the paramount mountains and also the talisman especially especially i would like to mention the besh parma mountain um area because this is one of the few bottlenecks in the region and a lot of um bird enthusiasts are traveling already to see uh to see this region and uh to get um to understand uh the flow and so on and so forth and uh within this project um we are planning um to host a bird watching festival in november 2022 at the shirvan national park this is organized uh jointly with the minister of ecology and we've been also we are going to have a lot of international media and bloggers uh in this event too uh we've been uh very much working closely in developing um uh hiking trails across the northern and western routes uh in azerbaijan uh this routes we have already developed 16 hiking trails they are passing through remote mountain villages um all of these trails have been marked and with gps coordinated uh all the difficulty level levels have been assigned and all this information can be accessed on our website um another interesting project within this um within this hiking trails framework is we we are um we are uh cooperating with the transportation um uh trail uh organization and we've been um we have developed a nice 97 kilometer hiking through the uh lush forested mount mountains of sheki and zagata and this uh uh why it's so interesting because uh this hiking trail will start from the easternmost part of azerbaijan going to the western most part of azerbaijan and will be passing through greater and lesser uh caucasus mountains and currently we are also working uh on the new routes um with uh to to further develop this this this um uh project um another interesting project i would like to mention is the slow foot travel a lot of people heard about a slow food concept and about its philosophy but first time in azerbaijan we actually emerged the slow food philosophy with slow food travel it has it was a project funded also by the european union and within this project um slow for travel and azerbaijan has been developed as a new model for tourism made of the meetings knowledge sharing experience exchanges with farmers cheese makers butchers bakers wine growers and other participants of the slow food chain and we developed and to make this experience accessible for everyone a slow food travel map has been prepared which shows the local producers to meet to me products to taste and places to visit across the northwestern route of the country it passes through the regions of ismail gabala sheikhi and garc and another exciting project we've been working on and a lot of people who traveled to azerbaijan already heard about the mud volcanoes because in azerbaijan we have uh more than half of all the model gunners in the world and right now we are developing um 12 hectare complex uh that that will be converted into a mud volcano's tourism complex um with a uh walking path zip line observation tower uh a lot of gift shops and medicinal bars so people who will be traveling to the mud volcanoes they will be also able to experience this uh first hand thank you can you tell me about the biggest convention center you have in baku or in other other cities and what kind of events they can host and also have any confirmed events for 2022. actually we have very good news because recently there was a limit on the number of the participants who came who can join different events across azerbaijan that has been lifted so right now we don't have a limit on the people joining any event and uh in azerbaijan we built uh one of the state-of-the-art convention centers not only in the region but i can also say in europe uh that can that can host um up to four thousand people at the same time and also with a lot of breaker breakout rooms uh exhibition uh feature spaces for exhibition and and also um different uh conference halls um this uh and i also a good feature to it is that it can be uh complemented by the very uh famous uh hyderalic center designed by uh renowned architect zaha hadid because they are located next to each other and when azerbaijan is bidding for different events of big scale these two venues are also beat together to get different events into azerbaijan thank you very much thanks for your time you
2022-04-04 10:58
