BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 23
By Sadraddin Aghjayev - Trend:
Only state investments and a tourism incentive policy can increase the tourism potential of the countries of the Caspian region, Russian political analyst, a researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Karavaev told Trend on July 22.
"Tourism in the Caspian region is non-competitive compared to the neighboring regions," Karavaev said. "Tourism in the region has been stipulated by its climatic conditions, short-season duration, lack of infrastructure and resort areas."
Karavaev stressed that there are no large-scale state investments in the Caspian region.
"The investments in this sector are the solution to the problem of tourism development," a political analyst added.
"The creation of tourist zones in the Caspian region is possible only through the state investments," Karavaev said. "Of course, the role of small and medium-sized businesses is also important, but the required scale can be covered only by the state investments."
The analyst stressed that it is necessary to constantly increase the state investments in tourist zones up to tens of billions of dollars to increase the tourist potential.
"Such investments with their further increase, attracting of private investors, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, as well as creating favorable conditions for investment are required for such a large-scale zone," the political analyst said.
Karavaev also stressed that entrepreneurs today are investing tens of millions of dollars in tourism and create (or modernize) only separate recreation areas, which are visited by only a few tourists.
"Only state investments and a tourism incentive policy can increase the tourism potential of the countries of the Caspian region," the analyst said. "The creation of at least five big recreation areas in this area will be able to benefit and increase the pace of regional cooperation of the Caspian countries."
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