One in five tourists in Azerbaijan are from Arab countries

The state’s Statistics Committee has reported that most tourists visiting Azerbaijan are from Arab countries. According to their report, every fifth tourist in Azerbaijan is a citizen from a Persian Gulf country: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Iraq and the UAE. One of the explanations for this is that Azerbaijan simplified the visa legislation for these countries in 2016.

In general, the influx of foreigners to Azerbaijan in the first half of 2018 increased by 10.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2017. Around 1.325 million foreigners from 189 countries arrived in Azerbaijan from January to June 2018.

As for residents of Azerbaijan, they too have begun to travel abroad more often. However, this indicator grew by only 6.3 per cent in the first half of 2018 in comparison to the same time period in 2017, to just over 2 million people. A third of them went to neighboring Georgia.