Foreigners visiting Azerbaijan soar 20% in 2017

Baku. 8 January. REPORT.AZ/ The number of foreigners arriving in the country in 2017 has increased in comparison with the last five years.

Report was informed in the Department of Information and Public Relations of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan.

Compared with 2016, the number of foreigners arriving in our country increased by 449 215 (20%) and reached 2 691 998 people. This is the highest figure ever observed.

853 082 of them are citizens of Russian Federation, 537,710 - Georgians, 362 597 - Iranians, 301,553 Turkish, 102,353 are from the United Arab Emirates, 62,454 from Iraq, 57,756 from Ukraine, 33,273 from Saudi Arabia and 381,213 citizens from other countries. Foreigners mostly came in July (313 515 people).

Specific weight of citizens of Russia, Georgia, Iran, Turkey and UAE in the total number of foreigners who came to our country last year was more and made 31.6 % 19.9 %, 13.4 %, 11.2 % and 3.8 %, respectively.

Countries with key growth rates in 2017 were Iran, UAE, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Compared to 2016, visitors from Saudi Arabia increased 4.5-fold, from Oman 7.4 times, from UAE 1.9 times, from Iran 1.4 times, from India 2.3 times. However, the number of arrivals from Turkey decreased by 11,790 people, but the number of arrivals from Europe, Gulf and Middle East, Asia, Africa and America countries increased.