Indian Charge d'Affaires: Azerbaijan and India have opportunities to expand mutual tourism flows

Azerbaijan and India have opportunities to expand mutual tourism flows, India's Charge d'Affaires in Azerbaijan, Vinay Kumar, said at the Azerbaijan-India B2B meeting held in Baku Tuesday, Report informs.

“As most of you are aware, while the tourism traffic from India to Azerbaijan has seen substantial growth in the past few years, there is still far and few visitors from Azerbaijan to India. This could perhaps be because of the lack of awareness and information regarding the huge variety of attractive places in India that visitors from Azerbaijan could choose. I, therefore, hope that through today’s exchanges and presentations, we will be able to provide more information to the major stakeholders in Azerbaijan. The timing of organizing this event is very opportune, as we are seeing increasing convergences among the tourism and travel of the two sides to engage and work together,” he said.

Kumar also stressed that India and Azerbaijan enjoy warm and friendly relations based on historical and cultural ties.

“Our bilateral trade reached $1.882 billion in 2022. India has now become the fifth largest trade partner for Azerbaijan,” he said.

“The Indian Travel and Tourism Industry is a very important sector for India. It is one of the largest components of the service sector in India and contributes to close to 7% of India’s GDP annually. The sector is expected to experience robust growth after pandemic. To facilitate the growth of the industry, the Government of India introduced various measures, including improvement in tourism infrastructure, and eased the travel to India by extending e-visa issuance to over 150 countries, including Azerbaijan,” the Indian diplomat said.