Azerbaijan working to recover its tourism sector

Rehabilitation works in Azerbaijan's tourism sector have started despite the pandemic, head of an Azerbaijani tourism firm Rahman Guliyev said.

He noted that the resumption of flights to several countries had caused a revival in the sector.

"In the period of the pandemic, the tourism sector was fully paralyzed and has not recovered completely. Closed land borders and restricted flights had a negative effect on tourism. Nevertheless, the resumption of flights to several countries caused a relative revival of tourism," he said.

Rahman noted that Azerbaijan is now taking steps to recover tourist flow from Persian Gulf states.

"The State Tourism Agency works to attract tourists from the Far East, European and American countries. I think that these steps will lead Azerbaijan's tourism sector to the pre-pandemic levels in the nearest future."

In January-April this year, Azerbaijan hosted 330,679 international tourists, twice as many as in the same period last year.

April saw 84,402 travelers, marking an 84.4% increase over a year ago.