Elvira Kadyrova
Azerbaijan hosted the 7th Meeting of the Ministers of Tourism of the Organization of Turkic States on 23-24 May 2022.
The event, moderated by Baghdad Amreyev, Secretary General of the Organization of Turkic States, gathered the delegations of profile ministries and agencies of Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Hungary.
Turkmenistan was represented by Ambassador of Turkmenistan Mekan Ishanguliyev and deputy minister of culture Nursakhet Shirimov joined the event via teleconference.
Baghdad Amreyev briefed the Parties on the latest activities of the Organization of Turkic States and underlining the tourism as one of the most important cooperation areas, which is not only creating revenue and job opportunities but also facilitate to bring the people even closer as well as increase people to people contact within the Turkic World and third countries.
Touching upon the tourism relations among the Member and Observer States, as well as undertakings and activities of the Secretariat, Secretary General reported about the new programs and projects. They include establishing relations among the Associations of the Travel Agencies and other stakeholders, developing collaboration on the winter and golf tourism among the Member and Observers and constituting “Best Tourism Villages of the Turkic States” initiative, as well as ongoing projects.
Heads of delegation shared with participants the latest developments in the field of tourism in their countries as well as the recovery plans in the post-pandemic period.
They also underlined the importance of developing joint projects on OTS to attract more tourists to the region.
Referring to tourism as one of the critical areas for economic development, parties expressed their willingness to deepen relations in this sphere and confirmed their readiness to increase tourist mobility and develop experience sharing programs with each other.
The meeting adopted the regulation on the “Turkic World Tourism Capital” and announced that Azerbaijani Shamakhi will be the Turkic World Tourism Capital 2023.
Parties further agreed to establish an ad-hoc working group consists of ministries of tourism and transport and other stakeholders to discuss the opportunities of increasing the number of flights among the major cities of the member and observer states.
In order to conduct the prospective projects systematically and within a timeframe, the session adopted the joint roadmap which includes various events, exhibitions, festivals, contests, games, training programs, touristic tours and programs.
8th Ministerial Meeting on Tourism of the OTS will be held in Turkestan city of Kazakhstan in 2023.
Turkmenistan joined the Organization of Turkic States as an observer in November 2021 during 8th Summit of heads of states of OTS. ///nCa, 26 May 2022