The season for tourism has begun in Armenia. According to the governmental decision as of 2003, tourism is considered to be the main field of Armenian economy.
Just like in the other fields of economy, there is progress in the tourism too. According to the National Statistics Service (NSS) the number of tourists visiting Armenia during 2005 is 318.563. In the same period of 2004 this number was 262.959, i.e. the growth mark is 21,1%. “168 Hours” got information from head of the tourism department of the trade and economic development ministry Mekhak Apresyan, it is expected that this year the number of tourists visiting Armenia will be 350.000.
Development of tourism helps other substructures develop too (hotel business), as well as the GDP growth. The mentioned law defines three terms. According to the law, tourism is considered to be visits of citizens to the country for other purposes than working and staying there not more than year. Tourists are people who visit the country and stay overnight for at least one night. Let’s bring up an example: if someone visits Armenia to be present at funerals he is considered to be a tourist and brings profit to the country. Now let’s try to imagine what the real picture of the field in Armenia is. According to the NSS only 16% of tourists visiting Armenia in 2005 stayed at 35 hotels, the rest stayed at apartments, at their relatives’ places, etc. It is also worth mentioning that some hotels in Armenia can’t handle services for tourists in some periods. Last year, during August-September, there were very few hotel services and there was high demand. Based on all this, we can assume that tourism is active only during some periods and these variations are good for the government to describe the economical growth as good and rapid.