By  Trend

In 2018, 2,849,600 tourists from 196 countries arrived in Azerbaijan, or this number is 5.7 percent more compared to 2017, Trend reports referring to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan.

Percentage of visitors by country of origin:

Men accounted for 66.1 percent of those who arrived in Azerbaijan, while women accounted for only 33.9 percent.

Percentage of tourists by months:

In 2018, the largest increase in the number of incoming tourists was observed among the citizens of the Gulf countries (except for the UAE and Iran).

Compared to 2017, the number of Saudi citizens who arrived in Azerbaijan increased 2.2 times and the number of Bahraini tourists doubled. Increase was also observed among Kuwaiti (1.8 times), Qatari (1.6) times, Iraqi (7.9 percent), Omani (7.4 percent) tourists.

On the other hand, the number of arriving Iranian and Emirati tourists decreased by 33.7 and 8.3 percent, respectively.

In general, 554,100 people arrived from the Gulf countries, and almost every fifth person who visited Azerbaijan in 2018 was a citizen of these countries.

Compared to 2017, the number of tourists from India increased by 2.7 times, Israel - by 2.6 times, Egypt, Turkmenistan and South Korea - by 1.7 times each and from China - by 1.5 times.

As for the EU citizens, in 2018 their number increased by 6.7 percent to 112,500 people, while the number of the citizens of CIS countries went up by 3.8 percent and reached 1,044,200 people.

Rail and road transport were used by 57.5 percent of those who arrived in Azerbaijan in 2018, while 41.5 percent opted for air transport and only 1 percent arrived by water transport.