Tourism Twinning Project

18/06/2014

The Closing Conference of the EU Twinning project “Strengthening the Capacity of the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan”held on 12.06.2014 on national TV channel

18/06/2014

The tourism industry of Azerbaijan has ushered into a new stage over the last years, as said by the Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mr.Abulfas GARAYEV at the closing conference of the EU-funded Tourism Twinning project on 12 June 2014.

http://az.trend.az/news/society/2284327.html

"Azərbaycanda turizm sənayesi son illərdə yeni mərhələyə qədəm qoyub. Azərbaycanın turizm inkişafı tempini və onun formalaşdırılması proseslərini təhlil etsək, görərik ki, 2001-ci ildən etibarən bu prosesi 3 mərhələyə bölmək olar".

18/06/2014

The EU Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mrs.Malena MARD spoke about the promising perspectives of tourism in Azerbaijan at the Closing Conference of EU-funded Tourism Twinning project.

http://az.trend.az/news/politics/2284340.html

Azərbaycanın turizm potensialı çox böyükdür. Trend-in məlumatına görə, bu barədə Avropa İttifaqının Azərbaycan nümayəndəliyinin rəhbəri, səfir Malena Mard "Azərbaycan Respublikasının Mədəniyyət və Turizm Nazirliyinin Turizm şöbəsinin imkanlarının gücləndirilməsi" tvinninq layihəsinin tamamlanmasına…

18/06/2014

The Resident Twinning Adviser of the Tourism Twinning project Mrs. Daiva Kirkilaite Chetcuti and Member State Project Leader Mr.Florian Sengstschmid spoke to Trend News Agency on 12.06.2014 at the official closing of the 16-month project.

http://en.trend.az/news/society/2284985.html

EU Tourism Twinning project, Resident Twinning Adviser Daiva Kirkilaite Chetcuti and Member State Project Leader Florian Sengstschmid speak to Trend News Agency

18/06/2014

The Closing Conference of the Tourism Twinning project in press (2):

http://azertag.com/node/1239770

http://azerbaijan.travel/az/news-view/1/1790-Azerbaycanda-turizmin-imkanlarinin-guclendirilmesine-hesr-edilmish-Tvinninq-layihesinin-yekunlarina-hesr-olunmush-konfrans-kechirilmishdir

http://www.yeniazerbaycan.com/SonXeber_e4087_az.html

http://azerbaijan.travel/az/news-view/1/1790-Azerbaycanda-turizmin-imkanlarinin-guclendirilmesine-hesr-edilmish-Tvinninq-layihesinin-yekunlarina-hesr-olunmush-konfrans-kechirilmishdir

18/06/2014

The Closing Conference of the Tourism Twinning project in press (1):
http://www.mct.gov.az/service/lang/az/page/5/nid/2079/

İyunun 12-də «Hyatt Regency Baku» mehmanxanasında «Azərbaycan Respublikası Mədəniyyət və Turizm Nazirliyinin Turizm şöbəsinin imkanlarının gücləndirilməsi» mövzusunda tvinninq layihəsinin başa çatması münasibətilə konfrans keçirildi.

18/06/2014

11.06.2014 / The Twinning project “Strengthening the Capacity of the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan” finalized

The Twinning project “Strengthening the Capacity of the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan” with the overall objective to improve the performance of the tourism sector in the process of diversifying the economy of Azerbaijan was successfully finalized.

The project of total contract value of 900,000 EUR started on 15 February 2013 and was implemented within almost 17 months with the support of the Beneficiary – Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan, by the EU Member State (MS) institutions - the Austrian Federal Procurement Agency (FPA) and Lithuanian State Department of Tourism . The final extended date of the project is 27th June 2014.

The project implementation brought significant changes into the public tourism management of Azerbaijan such as the following:

1) optimization and improvement of the organizational structure and capacity building of the Department of Tourism for better policy planning and implementation, analysing the trainings needs of the department personnel, providing trainings on advanced tools for tourism destination management to tourism authorities and industry representatives;

2) analysis and recommendations on update of the current tourism regulatory framework, introduction of secondary legislation setting minimal standards for services in tourism area, review of the acting licensing framework and submittal of recommendations on minimal licensing requirements, proposals on establishment of tourism foundation for financing the SME activities in tourism area;

3) current tourism statistics analysis and proposals on building efficient system of statistical reporting, introduction of impactful three-year marketing strategy, improvement of vocational education in tourism area, trainings on destination marketing and tourism product development;

4) Elaboration of a comprehensive self-regulatory model of the tourism and recreation area to be applied to Naftalan based on Lithuanian practice as well as development of the special tourism area model in ecologically sensitive regions.

As a result of Twinning proposals and recommendations the following main enforcements were officially made:

- The three-year Tourism Marketing Strategy (2014-2016) was officially adopted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism as of 13 November 2013;

- Minimum standards for hotels and accommodation types was adopted by the State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents which was effectuated starting from 14 January 2014;

- Azerbaijan Convention bureau (AzCB) was established by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to enhance MICE tourism capabilities in congresses and conferences.

The project results will be publicized at the official Closing Conference to be held on 12 June, 2014 at Hyatt Regency "Baku" room. The Conference will be hosted by Mr. Abulfas GARAYEV, the Minister of Culture and Tourism and Mrs. Malena MARD, Ambassador of the EU Delegation and will be attended by the Beneficiary authorities, MS counterparts, EU Delegation officials, tourism industry stakeholders and mass media.

18/06/2014

09.06.2014 / Forthcoming finalization of the Twinning project

The Twinning project “Strengthening the Capacity of the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan” has successfully accomplished the planned activities for the 5th quarter of project timeline on May 31st 2014. Due to the need to monitor the enforcement of reforms proposed by the project the addendum to Twinning contract was requested and subsequently agreed between the Beneficiary and the Delegation of the European Union as of 7 April, 2014, according to which the project was extended until 27 June 2014, e.i. for 1,5 months.

To discuss the tasks fulfilled in the last quarter the members of the steering committee have been invited to participate at the 5th Steering Committee Meeting which will be held on June 11, 2014 in the RTA office.

The activities implemented in the 5th quarter continued on implementation of tasks on legal approximation, capacity building for the Department of Tourism and model for the tourism and recreation area.

The legal adaptation was taken to the stage of enforcement of the secondary legislation for implementation and monitoring of which by the DoT proposals based on the assessment of the laws of Azerbaijan examined in Activities 2.1 and 2.2, also reflecting the needs of Department of Tourism in daily operations were submitted to the Beneficiary.

Within the capacity building component trainings on Tourism Destination Marketing and Product Development were conducted for the representatives of the Department of Tourism. The purpose of trainings was to familiarize with the basic tools for efficient practice-applied destination marketing such as tourism destination marketing value-chain approach, customer journey, communication life cycle, rethinking marketing, storytelling in tourism, blogging tips, e-mail marketing, destination marketing applied offline communication tools and promotion and definitions of the inputs and final outputs in tourism production process, tools for creating a destination experience based on the best-practice examples from Europe and around the world on developing the unique tourism products.
By conducting the trainings on the Destination management and Product Development for the personnel, the Twinning team did the best to assist the personnel of the Department of Tourism in discovering unique tourism products in Azerbaijan and exploring advanced creativity tools to build up an attractive and matchless image of the country.

To assist the DoT to access more frequent and precise data on arrivals, overnights, durations of stays and same-day trips with consideration of seasonality and other contributing factors the statistics expert of the Twinning project elaborated the description and the draft survey on domestic tourism which would be held regularly and prepared all the necessary steps and terms of reference for call for tenders for the survey ex*****on by local research institutions. As a result, the tender preparation is currently in the pipeline at the MCT.

The MS experts provided a comprehensive report comprising of developed methodological approach to a tourism destination model using the best practices of Lithuanian spa resorts for further adaptation to Naftalan. The elaborated model reflects aspects of supply and demand in developing a tourism and recreation destination, structural analysis of inbound tourism in Azerbaijan, classifications of health, spa tourism and medical tourism and application of their standards with examples of case studies from European countries as well as guidance to ecotourism development and proposals for introduction of ecotourism in Azerbaijan. The proposals reflected in the report highlighted crucial issues such as marketing of the Naftalan destination, products diversification in terms of comprehensive development of Naftalan-Goranboy area, strategic tourism planning, general and specific proposals for focusing on further development of health report and cultural life in the area.

The Twinning project also provided a model of tourism and recreation area in the ecologically sensitive regions demonstrating the perspective steps for touristic upgrading using an example of a “Bandavan” volcano and accompanied with recommendations to focus on preventive measures against natural and human impacts and develop the site as a tourism hotspot without destroying it (visitors` management) by offering to experience the nature and the outstanding lunar landscape.

As planned the Closing Conference of the Twinning project will take place on 12th June 2014 at Hyatt Regency “Baku Room” with participation of the Beneficiary, EU delegation, MS partners, local tourism stakeholders and mass media.

20/05/2014

Completed Activity 3.1 paves the ground for another project on domestic tourism in Azerbaijan

Last week was marked by completion of Activity: Assistance to the Department of Tourism and the State Committee for Statistics with regard to tourism statistics and the final mission of Mr. Peter Hackl, STE on statistics.

The expert`s activity was dedicated to assisting the DoT in plans to launch a system household survey to be held on monthly basis as response to STE recommendations provided in the Activity report. The idea behind is to enable the DoT to access more frequent and precise data on arrivals, overnights, durations of stays and same-day trips with consideration of seasonality and other contributing factors.

These monthly surveys will provide information about the domestic tourism which is preferable to results from the State Statistics committee, as they are supposed to indicate actual trends within a few weeks after the reference period, show the seasonal pattern also in details like visitors from the primary markets, leisure and business trips, and report trips which took place in a (short) period of max 6 weeks before the interview, so that the quality of the respondent’s answers is much higher than it can be expected for a biannual survey. The survey would consist of interviewing 1000 respondents monthly.

During the mission the STE based on the needs and support of the beneficiary elaborated the description and the draft survey on domestic tourism and prepared all the necessary steps and terms of reference for call for tenders for the survey ex*****on by local research institutions.

The STE also discussed with the State Statistics Committee the format of eventual cooperation between the MCT and the Statistics Committee regarding the access to the database of households and selection of households to be interviewed in accordance with requirements and selection methods. The parties agreed to facilitate the initiative of the Department of Tourism on households` survey through official correspondence on administrations level of both institutions which would shape the further steps.

07/05/2014

Component 4 - Assistance in developing a model for “Tourism and Recreation Areas” finalized

The final mission under Activity 4.3 comprising of a group of Lithuanian and Austrian experts marked the successful completion of Component 4 last week.
As a result of the Activity 4.3 the Lithuanian experts provided the comprehensive report on the elaborations under the activity comprising of a methodological approach to a tourism destination model for further adaptation to Naftalan.
Based on Lithuanian practice the experts provided in the report the forecast of tourism flows change in Naftalan though detailed description of well-balanced facilities, main groups of surrounding services, principal trends in most demanded spa resorts of Lithuania. The developed model entailed methodological approach to supply and demand in developing a tourism destination, structural analysis of inbound tourism in Azerbaijan, classifications of health, tourism and medical tourism and application of their standards with some examples of case studies from European countries as well as guidance to ecotourism development and proposals for introduction of ecotourism in Azerbaijan. The proposals reflected in the report highlighted crucial issues such as marketing of the Naftalan destination, products diversification in terms of comprehensive development of Naftalan-Goranboy area, strategic tourism planning, general and specific proposals for focusing on further development of health report and cultural life in the area.
The recommendations under this activity by Lithuanian experts focused on the need for better synthesis of supply and demand and tourist satisfaction, proper and correct adjustment of roles of public-private investors and implementers, tourism education and training, wellness spa and wellness tourism and organization of leisure time for attracting new segments of tourists.
The Austrian experts as a result of the Activity 4.3 completed developing a model of tourism and recreation area in the ecologically sensitive regions. One of the priority objectives was the product and service development inside “Shirvan” national park, as well as around mud volcanoes located nearby.
As the result of the meeting with the head of volcanism department of Institute of Geology of Azerbaijan Republic, the experts acquired detailed information about the mud volcanoes functioning on the territory of Azerbaijan Republic and reflected this information in general assessment and planning section of their report. It was noted that the compounds of the mud differ from volcano to volcano, which may result in different curative and beauty and wellness treatments which opens up a potential for wellness tourism to be eventually developed within Azerbaijani tourism strategy.

On an example of a “Bandavan” volcano perspective steps for touristic upgrading was demonstrated by the experts with recommendations to focus on preventive measures against natural and human impacts and develop the site as a tourism hotspot without destroying it (visitors` management) by offering to experience the nature and the outstanding lunar landscape. The experts developed a zonation planning for the “Bandavan” mud volcano area, which consists from the starting zone, discovery zone and chill-out zone by considering the environmental aspects like biodiversity and nature conservation, consumption of resources, transport, infrastructure, furnishing and planning.
The recommendations of Austrian experts were directed not only at mapping out a national strategy and action plan for the development, but also for protection of this natural heritage. The goal is to develop the touristic potential of the site in an eco-friendly way and to give concrete recommendations how a precious and unique natural site can be designed as touristic attraction in a sustainable and eco-friendly manner.
At the same time a comprehensive report for the development of services and products inside the national parks of Azerbaijan Republic was prepared and presented by the Lithuanian expert.
The report embraces wide range of information such as the strengths and weakness of eco-tourism development potential in protected areas of Azerbaijan Republic, most important factors for establishing of ecotourism products (bird watching, wild nature sightseeing, long hiking trips, horseback riding, etc.), opportunities and perspectives for ecotourism development, general requirements for starting ecotourism, identification of ecotourism stakeholders, proposals for ecotourism opportunities in the protected areas, preparation of territorial planning documents and etc.

On the other hand, Lithuanian best practice was also reflected in the report and covered information on development of the environment, present and future status of economy, design, safety, accessibility, examples of tourist route designation, examples of stands in the nature, cognitive paths in the state parks, recreation objects, special view places and etc.

The recommendations provided in the report also focused on importance of adapting the natural resources for visitors` interests and establishing the policy coordination and efficacy firstly between the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Environment and Nature resources; between the administrations of national parks and regional and local administrations, as well as improving professional competence when analyzing ecotourism perspective in the Azerbaijan national parks and regions.

The experts recommended that the Ministry of culture and tourism start developing human capacity of the ecotourism sector: to prepare a project “The development and improvement of human resources tourism capacity of municipal administrations”, organize training courses for the staff of the National Parks, guides and to train providers of tourism services on the spot.

Picture: Preliminary Model of Tourism Services/Resources Potential of Naftalan

18/04/2014

Another “Tourism Destination Marketing” training was conducted for the representatives of the Department of Tourism by MS Project Leader Mr. Florian Sengstschmid and RTA Mrs. Daiva Kirkilaite-Chetcuti within the frameworks of the Tourism Twinning project. The training was attended by the employees and heads of sectors for Marketing, Planning and development and Regional development. The training started with the presentation which covered tourism product development, definitions of the inputs and final outputs in tourism production process, tools for creating a destination experience. The speakers shared with the participants some best-practice examples from Europe and around the world on developing the unique tourism products. The training was further conducted in interactive format: participants got actively involved in practical exercises in groups and developed two sample tourism products for voluntarily chosen destinations in Azerbaijan based on the stepwise development schemes presented by Twinning .

By conducting the trainings on the Destination management and Product Development for the personnel, the Twinning team did the best to assist the personnel of the Department of Tourism in discovering unique tourism products in Azerbaijan and exploring advanced creativity tools to build up an attractive and matchless image of the country.

04/04/2014

The Twinning project: “Strengthening the capacity of the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan” was represented at 13th Azerbaijani International Travel & Tourism Fair at the official stand of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan by MS Project Leader Mr. Florian Sengstschmid and RTA Mrs. Daiva Kirkilaite-Chetcuti. The participants got familiarized with the project brochures, got information about the project results as well as asked the project related questions.

13th Azerbaijan International Travel and Tourism Fair, AITF 2014 is taking place from 3 to 5 April in the exhibition complex of Baku Expo Centre and is attended by nearly 300 companies from the 38 participating countries and more than 80 tourism destinations as well as more than 60 hotels from 22 regions of Azerbaijan.

19/03/2014

At the beginning of March the experts from Austria and Lithuania specialized in the sphere of ecotourism, jointly initiated to implement the activities of the 4th Component of the Twinning project.
The implementation of the mission started from a meeting conducted with the representative of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan Republic, which covered the issues related to the national parks and their management plans, budgeting of the national parks, human resources, tourism infrastructure on the territories of the national parks, cooperation between the ministries, role of locals and other matters. The results of the meeting were analyzed at the DoT together with the RTA counterpart, which was followed by the decision to put emphasis on the product and service development inside the national park and to concentrate on the adjacent areas of “Shirvan” national park, “Gobustan” area and the mud volcanoes located nearby.
In order to get a better understand of the products and services available in the national parks as well as to achieve the planned results in the development of tourism and recreation areas, a familiarization trip to the abovementioned places took place.
As the result of the visit, corresponding assessment works were done by the experts, who are currently working on the development of concrete proposals for ecotourism opportunities in protected areas like ecotourism products, their specifics and diversity, recommendations for a soft touristic development in the territories of the national parks, as well as security aspects and Infrastructure (accessibility, parking lots, itineraries), recreation facilities and etc. It is also planned to do a geological assessment and zonation planning of the selected areas during the coming mission of the experts.

26/02/2014

Tourism Destination Marketing training was conducted for the representatives of the Department of Tourism by MS Project Leader Mr. Florian Sengstschmid within the frameworks of the twinning project “Strengthening the capacity of the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan”. The training was attended by the employees of the marketing sector, planning and development sector as well as the deputy director of DoT and the heads of the sectors took part in the meeting. The presentation started by giving the insight into the recently developed Tourism Marketing Strategy for 2014 – 2016 and also covered several topics related to the basic tools for efficient practice-applied destination marketing.

A big interest was shown by the participants to the various topics and real life examples reflected in the presentation like tourism destination marketing value-chain approach, customer journey, communication life cycle, rethinking marketing, storytelling in tourism, blogging tips, e-mail marketing, destination marketing applied offline communication tools, promotion and etc.

It is also planned to organize the additional internal trainings which will take place in the upcoming month.

10/02/2014

A Study visit Program organized within the frameworks of the last component of the EU Twinning project “Strengthening the capacity of the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan” took place in Lithuania from 19th till 26th of January 2014.
During the study visit Azerbaijani delegation led by the deputy minister Mr. Nazim Samadov, head of regional development sector Mr. Mahir Gahramanov and the RTA counterpart Mr. Fikret Mammadov met with different tourism institutions and key tourism stakeholders and exchanged their experience in the field of tourism. The study visit covered several meetings, which took place at the headquarters of the following institutions: Druskininkai Municipality, Druskininkai Tourism and Business Information Centre, Birshtonas Municipality, Lithuanian Rural Tourism Association, Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania, Ministry of Economy in charge of tourism policy in Lithuania and etc.
Moreover, Azerbaijani delegation also attended “ADVENTUR” International Tourism Fair and visited the University of Vilnius.
The meetings covered several discussion topics related to different aspects of tourism. The most important issues included the role of IT in the sphere of Tourism, planning of the health resorts, development tendency of rural and other types of tourism in Lithuania, the role of Health Resort Associations in the development of tourism, work organization of the institution, coordination of work, planning, marketing and etc.
A special attention was given to the Lithuanian practice in the system of social deductions for the holidays of retirees, Lithuania participation at Bazel-Zulfer tourism fair for attracting Russian speaking Germans – natives of USSR and CIS, practice used by Lithuanian TICs in transporting mobile exhibition stands for multiple usage, available camping sites of Lithuanian TICs (could be adopted by Azerbaijani TICs), practice of Druskininkai crafts school and practice in reorganization of formerly municipality owned Health resorts into self-sustainable institutions.
The RTA Counterpart Mr. Mammadov noted about the possibility to offer Azerbaijani trade unions to switch to self-sustainability in return to the contracts and contribution for the participation. On another hand, based on the Lithuanian experience, he also emphasized the feasibility of new funding mechanism for Azerbaijan which could be used by construction companies to obtain a loan and initiate a construction project on condition that the loan payback is gradually carried out by either the Government or municipalities.
In the case with the Tourism Support Foundation a scheme of issuing the grants in Druskininkai (350 000 litas for 10 working places) was taken as a good practice to introduce.
Among the other best practices during the study visit the participants noted the ongoing active work in the National Parks of Lithuania with the available excursion programs for students, specific rules and limitations for the tourists to attend the park, construction limitations and already existing products like campgrounds, pedestrian itineraries, bicycle and water roads, information stands, lessons in nature, gathering mushrooms and berries and other regulations, which could be applied in the National Parks of Azerbaijan.

07/02/2014

Model on improving the vocational and educational system is in the process of development.

Within the 3rd component of the project under Activity on development the “Action Plan on promoting vocational education & training in the hospitality industry” a mission of Lithuanian experts visited Azerbaijan in January 2014. As a result of the mission week Aa research in the field of tourism vocational education training has been conducted by experts covering the present stance of the vocational education and training in tourism area and all studies and developments brought in by public and international initiatives.

As part of research a comparative analysis of numerical indicators of within the 3rd component of the project. Azerbaijan and Lithuanian tourism sectors was carried out, the latter experiencing rapid developments after gaining independence. With the purpose to identify the gaps in Azerbaijani tourism indicators the mission compared various aspects such as revenues from tourism receipts, numbers of hotels and hotel rooms, tour operators, higher education institutions with tourism specialties and training institutions, labor force mainly from touristic companies and hotels.

The overall analysis of the VET system in Azerbaijan revealed the major problems such as limited capacity to develop skilled professionals in the regions - especially the lack of certified teachers, lecturers, a low number of tourism professionals employed by education, poor English language skills, negative impact of seasonality on labor market, lack of continuous training for professionals in tourism sector, lack of motivation (due to low salaries which leads to poor results and in this case low quality of services for a tourist) as well as the lack of monitoring and regularly performed market researches on the changing needs of the market.

Taking the above mentioned issues into account a relevant model was developed by the experts, which implies the strengthening of collaboration between institutions, increasing the tourism sector competencies in the regions and fostering of public-private partnership projects. The collaboration between Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Ministry of Education is considered to be important, as both institutions are involved in training of tourism professionals. The experts proposed that the improved cooperation and coordination can be achieved using the directions of VET system development listed in the planning documents: in the VET strategy and tourism strategy which are currently being prepared.

They also supported the initiative of establishing Tourism Support Foundation and proposed that one of its functions could be the promotion of tourism professionals in the region. Relying on successful functioning of territorial labor exchange centers in Lithuania, the experts proposed to establish such territorial labor exchange centers in the main regions of Azerbaijan, which would serve as intermediary bodies and, taking into account the needs of the tourism sector, would announce tenders for short term (3-4 months) educational programs, courses and follow- up programs. Such training programs could be organized by VET regional schools, tourism information centers travel agents, colleges and private training centers. The funding of such courses could be assigned by Tourism Support Foundation. The recommendations also covered quality of services with proposal on regular monitoring of the quality of tourism services through research which should become the priority of Azerbaijan Tourism Institute in cooperation with tourism NGO’s.