Demand for travel to Armenia falls, while Baku records rise

/By Azernews/

By Amina Nazarli

The renewed hostilities on the frontline between Armenian and Azerbaijani since April 2, when the Armenian side began to shell the Azerbaijani positions and settlements along the frontline, has become the reason for drop in number of visitors to Armenia.

Russian Aviasales, a leading search engine for flights and hotel bookings, reports 25 percent decline in demand for flights to Armenia.

Meanwhile, Russian Travel.ru travel service says Azerbaijan’s capital Baku is in the Top 10 cities, popular for Russians traveling during May holidays.

The Top 10 popular destinations among Russian tourists during the May holidays includes Minsk, Prague, Rome, Riga, Barcelona, Vilnius, Tallinn, Helsinki, Baku and Bratislava.

The flaring of long-simmering tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan again on April 2, resulted in the killing of two civilians and injuring of 10 another, including a 13 year old child. More than 10 houses as well as local people`s property were also damaged.

To protect civilian population, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched counter attacks and repulsed the enemy forces back. The Azerbaijani troops retook hills around the village of Talish capable of posing threat to Goranboy region and the town of Naftalan, as well as Seysulan settlement, and also took over Lele Tepe hill located in the direction of Fuzuli region.

Six Armenian tanks, 15 gun mounts and reinforced engineering structures have been destroyed and more than 100 Armenian servicemen were wounded and killed during the shootouts.

Twelve servicemen of the Azerbaijani armed forces heroically died, one Mi-24 helicopter was shot down and one tank damaged by a mine.

Despite Azerbaijan's decision on unilateral suspension of the counter-attacks and response measures in the territories occupied by Armenia, the Armenian Armed Forces resumed shelling of Azerbaijani positions along the line of contact on the night of April 4.