Exhibition News

Discover a World of Opportunities at AITF 2010!

AITF is the main event of the tourism industry in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus region. Over the years, AITF has become a key platform for establishing and maintaining contacts between international and Azerbaijani tourism professionals.

One of the advantages of taking part in the exhibition is the reliability and promise of Azerbaijan. According to a report by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, Azerbaijan is recognised as a world leader in implementing business regulation reforms.

Today, the world is experiencing an economic crisis and industrial output is falling. However, Azerbaijan ranks highly internationally for the rate of economic development over the past five years (2004-2008). During this period, the economy has grown 2.6 times, and budget expenditure more than 10 times. According to a UN report, (World Economic Situation and Prospects 2009) Azerbaijan will continue to be most rapidly developing economy in the CIS.

Tourism in Azerbaijan is a fast developing industry, and the AITF exhibition will present interesting new trends and destinations.

In the past few years, 320 hotels of different categories, with 30,706 rooms, have been built and existing hotels upgraded. 35 new hotels are currently under construction. Four new international airports started operating in 2009.

Inbound tourism: Despite the overall slowdown, Azerbaijan is experiencing high volumes of inbound tourism. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan, in 2009, the number of tourists coming to Azerbaijan was up 40-45% against the previous year, and will increase to 2.3 million.

Outbound tourism: The number of Azerbaijani tourists travelling abroad is also up against previous years. In 2008, the number of outbound tourists was 2.45 million. This figure grew by 16 percent in 2009. The top ten destinations were Turkey, Italy, Spain, UAE, Ukraine, Russia, Greece, Malaysia, Thailand and Switzerland.

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