The Government of Azerbaijan and UNDP open a Regional Tourist Information Centre in Lenkaran

Lenkaran, 14 May 2007 - Mr. Abulfas Garayev, Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mr. Bruno Pouezat, UN Resident Coordinator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative, and Mr. Suleyman Mikailov, Head of Executive Power of the Lenkaran District, officially opened a Regional Tourist Information Centre (TIC) in Lenkaran today. "Tourism is crucial to the economic well being of the region. By setting up the regional TIC we intend to harness the tourism potential of and improve tourism services in the southern area of Azerbaijan", Mr. Garayev said at the opening ceremony.

The Lenkaran region has the potential for its positioning as one of the attractive tourism destinations in the country. The TIC will primarily help to diversify the tourism services and products in the region, thereby contributing to job creation for the local population and reducing poverty. The Centre will help foreign and local tourists to identify places of interest and select attractive tourist routes in the region as well as offer support to promoting the regional tourism potential by designing and distributing different visitor orientation and information related publication material such as booklets, brochures, route maps, etc.

In addition, the Centre will provide specific in-house training courses which will target specialists employed in the sector and include youth from low-income families living in rural areas of Lenkaran to facilitate their further employment in the tourism industry.

Opening of the regional Centre is part of the joint project of the Government of Azerbaijan and UNDP which is aimed at providing institutional support to the Ministry to reduce poverty in Azerbaijan through facilitating effective development of domestic tourism. With the rich hydrocarbon resources of Azerbaijan, the oil sector will be a major source of revenue for the country in the coming years, but the government makes additional efforts to promote the development of other labour-intensive sectors of national economy in order to achieve a more balanced economic growth and a greater impact on improvement of income-generation opportunities, especially in the regions and rural areas. The Government has made tourism development an important element of its policies, given that it can bring positive impact to a country by creating economic opportunities and contributing to improving people's quality of life.

In his welcoming speech, Mr. Bruno Pouezat thanked the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Head of Executive Power, and professionals engaged in the tourism industry in Lenkaran for their support to the tourism development as an increasingly vital tool for poverty reduction in the region. "It is the combination of those three initiatives that makes tourism a real engine for generating income", Mr. Pouezat said.

The regional TIC is part of the City Handcraft Centre located on the main highway to Lenkaran. With the support of the project, similar facilities have been opened in Shamahi, Khacmaz, and Sheki and next in line are regional Centres in Guba, Ganja, Zakatala, and Nakhichevan. All TICs will eventually make best use of the Information and Communication Technologies to establish a network and provide information for visitors in the wider sense - sub-regionally, regionally and nationally, and across all channels, whether face to face, over the telephone, electronically, or in print - to become centres of excellence by raising standards, thereby boosting domestic tourism development.


For more information:
Ms. Irada Ahmedova
Development Adviser,
Team Leader for Crisis Prevention and Recovery practice,
Focal point for Gender practice
Tel.: +99412 498 98 88 (ext.117)