No one had a doubt that the post-electoral processes and particularly the incidents of March 1 would have a negative impact on the country’s economy and especially foreign relations. A few days after that day President Robert Kocharyan also expressed his concern about that and even emphasized that the incidents would reduce the tourists’ visits to Armenia. People, who had planned to visit Armenia, changed their plans. Yesterday the Minister of the Trade and Economic Development Nerses Yeritsyan held a press conference and said that they receive alarms from the representatives of tourism field. According to Yeritsyan the tourists have canceled their visits to Armenia, many months back – 2 groups from France, 10 groups from Germany, 13 groups from the USA, 3 groups from Japan, 1 group from the Netherlands and 1 group from Denmark. In his words especially those tourists, who’re planning to visit Armenia for the first time, got most repelled from the incidents in the country. However, there is one interesting fact. Mr. Yeritsyan thinks that the tourists cancelled their visits to Armenia because of the inaccurate coverage of the situation in Armenia. “The wrong imitation of March 1 events brings it negative impact on us and tourism,” said the minister and added if not proper information is being exploited then the country will have serious problems, as the tourists are mainly interested in how safe the country is. The latter is concerned of how they could regulate the information flow by internet on the post election conditions in Armenia. It is a fact that the tourists have all the grounds to avoid visiting Armenia because of their personal security. But what does concern the tourists most? Is it the scenes they watch on Haylur on their satellite TV where the stores are being broken and policemen getting beaten or the small information on Internet websites? The Minister on his part mentioned that the political state of the country first of all repels those tourists who have only recently started to recognize Armenia. In this regard, the tourists don’t care who’s guilty and who’s innocent. They mostly care whether there is danger in the country and whether their security is jeopardized or not. But on Haylur they see burning vehicles, they see how the police finds hidden weapons in the lake in a few days after the incidents. What are the tourists most scared of? As a response Yeritsyan said, “It is impossible to do such an evaluation. Those are mostly done through surveys. We didn’t have enough time to conduct a survey. We’ll find it out only after surveys. We should be able to show and describe the situation in a right way. People can walk on our streets safely till 2 or 3 in the morning, stop at cafes, etc.” “In that case why do we blame the Internet sites before conducting a survey?” “I am not blaming only them. All I’m saying is that it has a negative impact on the image of our country. These are my personal opinions formed by my relatives, who live abroad.” In Yeritsyan’s words, the President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and the RA Prime Minister also expressed their concern about tourism. And the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development initiated a few steps to correct the situation. In particular, Armenia participated in two international exhibitions in Milan and Berlin, during which “we have attempted to diplomatically correct the situation and provide with truthful information.” Yeritsyan expressed his conviction that the solution of the issue depends on everyone, including the media. Thus, the Armenian media must probably provide such information, which would say that everything is calm in Armenia, walking on the streets is safe. Thus the media should determine to show a burning vehicle or not. The naïve readers may think that what is the problem? Our government can order the TV channels to show only positive information. But we should disappoint he readers here as Yeritsyan said, “Media is not controlled by the government.” I guess this is not important either because the tourist watching his satellite TV channel about Armenia and watching the great spring reason may ask himself/herself, “in that case why is there state of emergency?” As an opposite the word emergency in English implies something scary and dangerous. Yeritsyan, however, is optimistic and thinks that this year the number of tourists visiting Armenia will reach 600 thousand instead of the 510 thousand of the last year. “We will provide the mentioned turnout of tourists because the 9% increase is only conditional,” said the minister. Will the incidents of March 1 somehow affect the investment rates in the country? In the opinion of the minister there is certain influence, however, “the actual and serious investors visit the country, survey the actual situation, their risks, etc and only after that make investments. During the last month I have met with a few investors, who are going to make investments in Armenia regardless of the current situation.” Are all these issues not jeopardizing the fulfillment of a 2.5 billion state budget? Yeritsyan was optimistic in this regard as well, “No. Of course 2.5 billion is an ambitious number but realistic. The government does its best to provide this index. At any rate all the forecasts were based on concrete facts, concrete investments. In this regard we haven’t had any regress so far.” Thus, according to Yeritsyan we don’t have serious issues in the economy except for the tourism, inflation and AMD revaluation. All is left to do is keep the investors loyal to us and ensure that the tourists are not using the Internet and only watch the 2 Stars on H1.
