In spite of the numerous announcements of Armenian officials saying that tourism is growing rapidly in Armenia, there are no professionals working at the tourist agencies and tourists often leave Armenia disappointed.
Often travel agencies have to apologize to their tourists for the low level of services in Armenia, and this is not only bad for them, but also the reputation of Armenia in general. It is said that tourists make black PR after leaving Armenia and tell their friends not to visit the country. They meet difficulties upon their arrival in Armenia: “Currently, the airport doesn’t serve the tourists well. I had such difficulties myself a week ago and could not even imagine that it would happen to me too. In order to set foot into Armenia, people have to wait for over two hours at the passport desk to get permission. I was apologizing to our tourists. There are eight passing points and they all serve over 1.000 passengers”, says chairman of the American union of travel agencies, director of “Five Stars” organization, Eghishe Tanashyan. He says that there isn’t anything like that in any other international airport. For instance, in America, which has the strictest migration control, the time that passport desks need for handling one passenger is not more than 1-2 minutes. In Europe it takes them about 3-4 minutes, as for Armenia, it takes them over 3-4 minutes to handle a passenger. In other words, tourists face hardships upon their arrival because passport control desk officers often insult them, don’t serve them well and there isn’t good air conditioning and other equipments in the waiting hall. “After such procedures, tour operators have to provide extra services in order to cover up for those officers. After all this, tourists don’t return to Armenia anymore and make black PR in their countries”, says E. Tanashyan and assures that the most effective advertisement for travel services is the feedback of tourists, and thus when they leave Armenia they share their impressions with their friends. According to him, in Australia, where there are many Armenians, people have a negative opinion about Armenia because once an Armenian travel agency correspondent didn’t do his job well. Now it’s very hard to get the tourists to trust Armenia.
Generally, travel agencies and tourist agency correspondents handling culture tourism concentrate on Christian and culture programs, which organize inbound tourism as well. According to Tanashyan, Armenians are not interested in tourism inside Armenia because they prefer traveling abroad. According to Tanashyan, there are two reasons for that; first, the prices that foreign travel programs offer are close to the prices of the travel programs inside Armenia, second, people get more incomes now and spend more money on traveling and travel abroad, where the quality of service is at a higher level. “We don’t have relevant infrastructures in Armenia to attract tourists. The lack of leisure is a very big problem for tourism. Starting from last year citizens were offered low prices for travel services in Georgia and for sea vacation. In other words, people prefer traveling abroad and if they don’t have enough money they may spend their vacation in Georgia or by the sea”, says Mr. Tanashyan and adds that for instance the prices for villas in Tsakhkadzor are very high. For example, you have to spend 17-18.000 dram per day for staying at a villa in Tsakhkadzor. The prices of these services in Kabuletti and Batumi are much lower. “Generally the small hotel complexes built in Armenia are expensive and not many people can pay for those services. There are hotels in Sevan with good quality but they can only provide services to 50-60 persons at a time. Instead of that, it would be better to build clean and normal, 2-3 star hotels that could serve 150-200 persons at a time. In remote places we don’t need four or five stars hotels because they can operate those hotels only during a season, for instance the hotels in Sevan. On the one hand this is the investors’ problem, but on the other hand I think that such hotels are not profitable”, thinks E. Tanashyan. The prices that the villas of Tsakhkadzor offer do not differ much from those in Sevan. Accordingly, people prefer to spend a little bit more money and relax abroad. As for those citizens who don’t have enough money for traveling, they don’t even have an opportunity to spend their vacation in Armenia. “The citizens who have money usually spend their vacation abroad and they spend time in the country on weekends. The people who travel are the same people”, assures chairman of the Armenian representation of the American union of travel agencies.
Armenian travel services are expensive in the world travel market. According to E. Tanashyan, Armenia is not considered as an expensive cultural product for tourism purposes. “The reason that Armenia is available as a cultural product is the fact that tour guides keep little income. Europeans often compare their vacation with traveling in Armenia, Turkey, Italy or the Spanish coasts. Evidently, for them it is preferable to spend their vacation in European countries, as well as cheaper. It is cheaper for tourists to travel in the mentioned three countries than in Armenia. However, from its cultural tourism point, the prices Armenia offers are close to the prices offered in the abovementioned three countries. When tourists buy sea vacation packages, they buy only hotel, transfer and food services, but when they pay for cultural travel packages they buy hotel, transfer, food services and go sightseeing, have a tour guide, try Armenian cuisine, visit museums, etc.”, says Mr. Tanashyan and assures that travel agencies and tour guides keep as little profit as they can, but due to the high prices of hotel services the packages are still offered for high prices. Airline ticket prices are also high. Europeans spend 1.500-1.800 USD to travel to Armenia. This price is paid for one week cultural package deals, which includes the airline roundtrip ticket, hotel services, transfers and sightseeing. They pay 700-800 USD for the airline ticket alone. They can just pay 200-300 USD and travel in any European country. If they don’t want cultural travel services and just want to rest, they can do that in Spain by paying 1.000 USD for only one week. Mr. Tanashyan says that Armenian cultural packages interest mainly tourists from Italy, Japan, Germany and Austria. “After the wars in the Middle East, Canadian and Italian tourists are getting more interested in Armenian Christian cultural tourism”, says Tanashyan and assures that during the coming years the flow of tourists to Armenia will grow rapidly. It is strange, but tourists from Muslim countries also visit Armenia because they like the liberal, pro-European lifestyle. “It is easier to get entrance visas and visit Armenia for some tourists from Middle Eastern countries than visit European countries. They like our free lifestyle,” assures head of “Five stars travel”.