An Analysis of Tourism Climate Potentials in Aras Free Zone

Aras commercial and industrial free zone began to work from 2004 in the border city of in Jolfa East Azerbaijan. Free zone organization has defined many aims to work in the domains of commerce and industry. Study and detection of environmental potentials are main role in development planning. We tried it is tried to evaluate the climate tourism characteristics. Climatic data were obtained for 1985 to 2005 from Jolfa synoptic station and used for calculation of tourism climate index (TCI). Results of study on the basis of TCI showed that 9 months of the year from April to October have favourable conditions to excellent with respect to tourism activities. Months of December, January and February, have acceptable state in the zone. Also trend analysis of TCI variations for statistical period showed that April, June and October have positive and meaningful trends but in other months there are no meaningful trends.