Profit of Hotels about 34 Million Manat

In 2014, revenues of hotels and so on facilities for the reception and accommodation of visitors increased by 5.7% to 181 million manat. Given their cost (147.1 million manat), which for the year increased by 1.1%, a 33.9 million AZN profit was generated. The growth of income was also influenced by increase in prices for hotel services: According to the State Statistics Committee, last year the cost of services in Azerbaijani hotels rose by an average of 2.2%

In the structure of expenditures the main share belongs to wages and social contributions (31.3% and 7.2%), purchase of goods for the preparation of food and beverages (16%), and depreciation (8.9%). The sector employs more than 9 thousand people (+750), which receive an average of 425.6 manat per month.

According to the SSC data provided in 2014, 672,300 people addressed for accommodation in hotels, which is only 0.9% more than in the previous year. In this case, 58.4% of the registered calls to hotels accounted for foreigners (392.8 thousand people). It is mostly citizens of Great Britain, Russia, Turkey, the USA, Germany, Iran, Italy, Ukraine, France, Georgia, Kazakhstan and China. The SSC analysis found that 73.2% of the foreign tourists used the services of the local hotels last year.

The total number of overnight stays in hotels was 1,687.7 thousand per day, which is only 0.8% more than in 2013. The share of Baku accounted for 64.1% of this figure. The overall occupancy of hotels in Azerbaijan amounted to 13%. In other words, hotels are almost empty throughout the year. However, analysis of data on individual regions of the country (for example, the Sheki-Zagatala region) shows that many hotels belonging to the bureaucratic oligarchy hide the real data on reception of visitors and income. Every year Gabala hosts numerous cultural and humanitarian activities attended by hundreds of foreigners. However, reports of hotels in the area, which is informally controlled by the family of the Minister for Emergency, do not include these indexes.

As of January 1 this year in Azerbaijan there were 535 hotels and hotel-type facilities, in which there were 17,363 rooms (+ 4.9%). About 70% of placements were located in Baku. These hotels can take 35,652 guests simultaneously. -----08D