OREANDA-NEWS. July 9, 2009. Reduction of things to order and ensuring development of tourism industry of Azerbaijan begins reminding a kind of bashing.

Culture and tourism minister Abulfaz Garayev says that around 60 hotels in Azerbaijan halted their work.

“Following checks it was clarified that they fail to conform to norms and have licensing problems. If they do not tackle their problems before the end of summer, they will shut down at all,” Garayev said.

The Ministry also received a range of license applications from resort sites and hotels of Nabran resort area (Caspian coastline in northern part of Azerbaijan). Mainly high-price-level hotels are opening there today with cost of residence starting from 800 manats (USD 1,000) a day that exceeds three-fold size of average monthly wage.

Presently 250 hotels have licenses,” Garayev said.

For the past three years 200 new hotels have been built in the country, including 54 ones in 2008. This year construction of 35 hotels is underway.

The minister also claims that despite the global economic crisis, tourist inflow has not reduced.

“I cannot call exact figures of tourists who arrived in Azerbaijan over the last half-year, but in the near future we don’t expect reduction of tourists in the country,” he considers.

According to the World Tourism Organization, this year non-reduction of tourist flow will be observed only in respect to Africa, to which Azerbaijan has no relation.