Crimea opens resort and tourism office in Baku

Baku, April 3 (AzerTAc). The Crimean Resorts and Tourism Ministry has today opened a resort and tourism office in Baku. Director of Silk Way Travel Company Shirzad Afandiyev and Crimean Minister of Resorts and Tourism Alexander Liev attended the opening ceremony. Crimean resort and tourism offices have already opened in Kyiv (Ukraine), Riga (Latvia), Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Yekaterinburg (Russia). The Crimean Resorts and Tourism Ministry is planning to open more than 20 resort and tourist offices abroad. They will be established on the basis of the local offices of travel companies and data centers in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. The choice of partners on establishment of the offices is on a competitive basis. At today`s media conference in Baku Crimean Resort and Tourism Minister Alexander Liev has stated that the office was established on the basis of Azerbaijani tourism company Silk Way Travel. "Azerbaijanis are potential tourists of Crimean health resorts, and therefore we have decided to open an office in Baku. In 2012 the Crimea was visited by 6.15 million tourists, 30% of whom arrived to obtain health services. The number of Azerbaijani tourists who visited the Crimea in 2012 reached 20,000 people, 70% of whom also benefited from the rich treatment experience,” he said. According to the minister, one of the main activities of the Crimean office will be the presentation of a new product. For the last 2 years (within 6 programs of study) the Office will train travel agents, who will not sit in the office and wait for the customers, but will always go to hospitals, where there are potential tourists for medical tourism. "These agents will work in every district of Baku and Azerbaijan, in order to ensure the flow of Azerbaijani tourists to the Crimea. One of our problems is that many tourists began to visit the Crimea as beach tourism, but we intend to keep the statute of the resort area, and precisely because the majority of Azerbaijanis arrive for medicinal purposes, it was decided on the opening of the Baku office to change later into the Ukrainian one,” Liev said.