Following the determination of the theme of the 4th Heads of State Summit of Turkic Council as "Tourism Cooperation which is planned to be held in Turkey", the Turkic Council focused its cooperation activities in this sphere.
In this regard, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan hosted Turkic Council Joint Photo Exhibition and First Joint Tourism Information Tour during the first week of April 2014 in accordance with the decision taken in December 2013 at the First meeting of the Working Group with participation of experts of the Member States.
Turkic Council delegation headed by Deputy Secretary General Gismat Gozalov in order to coordinate those events to participate in the 57th meeting of the UNWTO Commission for Europe (CEU) and Seminar on "Developing Effective Tourism Clusters" paid a visit to Baku.
In this context, the Turkic Council Joint Photo Exhibition was held on 3-5 April 2014 in Baku in the framework of 13th Azerbaijan International Travel and Tourism Fair (AITF-2014).
During the event, photographs on the tourism destinations of the Turkic Council Member States located along the historic Silk Road were exhibited. Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev and Secretary General of UNWTO Mr. Taleb Rifai were the first visitors of the said exhibition. On the second day of the exhibition, H.E. İlham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan and Minister Garayev honoured the exhibition throughout his visit.
Along with Turkic Council Joint Photo Exhibition in the framework of First Joint Tourism Information Tour, a delegation comprised of public and private sectors, as well as media representatives of the Turkic Council Member States visited Baku, Sheki and Gabala on 2-6 April 2014.
Participants of Joint Tourism Information Tour also attended opening of the Joint Photo Exhibition and TRT Avaz representatives taking part in the said Tour interviewed Deputy Secretary General Gismat Gozalov about activities in tourism to be realized within the Turkic Council.
Meanwhile, the delegation of Turkic Council Secretariat attended "Seminar of Developing Effective Tourism Clusters as well as participants of 57th meeting of the UNWTO Commission for Europe (CEU) held on 3-4 April 2014 in Baku and informed the participants of the meetings about activities of the Turkic Council to be carried out in tourism sphere. In addition, cooperation opportunities between the Secretariats of the UNWTO and Turkic Council were discussed during the meetings.
Report relating to those events will be presented to the First Meeting of Ministers in charge of Tourism to be held in Istanbul on 11 April 2014.Turkic Council Summit of Heads of State under the theme "Tourism Cooperation" is planned to be held in Turkey in the first week of June 2014.
