Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway May Give Momentum To Tourism In Caspian

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway came under the spotlight as a potential tourism booster to the Caspian and South Caucasus regions, when a top official from the World Tourism Organization said on December 9 that tourism in the five Caspian littoral states, primarily in Azerbaijan, may see new opportunities thanks to the newly opened railway.

"The Caspian region unites five countries with different cultures and traditions, therefore, it has a great potential for tourism development, which is impossible without regional cooperation, especially when we talk about cruise tourism," Zurab Pololikashvili, Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization (WTO), told Trend news agency.

"I believe that there is a great potential for tourism development in the country [Azerbaijan] by the popularization of traditions and multiculturalism, as well as unique landscapes of the country,” Pololikashvili said. “Continuing the promotion of the values that Azerbaijan has, especially in those emerging markets that are not familiar with the Caucasus and the Caspian region, can bring many opportunities.”

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) was launched in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on October 30, and is expected to carry 17 million tons of cargo per year as well as three million passengers at its height after five years from now. The initial capacity of the railway is between three and five million tons of freight and one million passengers.

The entire BTK route measures 846 km (526 miles), including a 105 km-long new segment that was built upon the existing rails. Baku is the start point of the railroad that runs to north through the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and then heads to its final destination of Kars in eastern Turkey. The project, which was launched in 2007, costs $1 billion, with the bulk of the financing coming from Azerbaijan's state oil fund.

Azerbaijan received over 1.8 million tourists during the first eight months of 2017, according to Azerbaijan’s Culture and Tourism Ministry. The country’s railways carried two million passengers, both internally and internationally, from January to October this year, which accounts for 25.7 percent increase as compared to last year’s numbers, according to data provided by the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan in November.

“Railway tourism enjoys growing interest in all countries of the world, because traveling by train is an adventure, and in addition, the train is an ideal means of transport that links transnational routes. A special geostrategic location of Azerbaijan can contribute to the further development of railway tourism in the country,” Pololikashvili told Trend.

Global railway passenger traffic stood at over 2.83 trillion passenger kilometers in 2016, according to statistical portal Statista.com. Rail passenger performance in the entire 28 country bloc of the European Union (EU) was 7.7 billion passenger kilometers in 2015, a 1.8 percent increase over that in 2014, according to the EU’s official Statistics Service Eurostat. Passenger-kilometer is a kilometer traveled by a passenger, used as a unit of measure.

China intends to incorporate BTK into its One Belt One Road (OBOR) mega transportation project, which consists of overland and maritime routes. Trains will depart from cities in China, cross into Kazakhstan at the Khorgos Gateway on its border with China, and continue westward.