Newsletter No. 978
News-Analysis
April 16, 2008

 

The following newsletter has been contributed by Malikov Khagani (Shingetsu Member No. 123). Khagani is a PhD candidate at Niigata University.

ATTRACTING JAPANESE TOURISTS ON BAKU’S AGENDA

It seems that some Japanese have become more interested in tourist sites in Azerbaijan after the tourist exhibition of Caucasian and Central Asian countries held recently in Tokyo, which was highlighted in Shingetsu Newsletter No. 936. Actually, there is a need for Japanese society to learn more about the Caucasus region (sometimes called one of the cradles of civilization) and its countries, about which most Japanese people know nothing due to the lack of mass media interest. Hopefully, these tourist events may lead to Japanese tour groups actually going to this region, including Azerbaijan, the largest country of the Caucasus nations.

In this context, on April 11th, the news service Today.Az wrote as follows:

A forum of the tourism operators of the member-states of the Organization of Islamic Conference, participating in the Silk Road project will be held in Azerbaijan on April 13-16. Today.Az reports with reference to the press service for the Ministry of Culture and Tourism that the event is expected to be attended by representatives of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Cameroon, UAE, Jordan, China, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Japan, and Italy.

We will see what these efforts may lead to.