– It seems that there are not many tourists in Armenia this year. What is the reason?
– Maybe this year there are fewer tourists in Armenia than in 2007, which was a travel “boom” for Armenia. However, we can’t say that tourists don’t visit Armenia much. According to the official information of the ministry, every year the number of the travel inflow grows by 3-4%. I think it is a positive number despite the fact that most of these tourists are visitors. The situation is different with the organized tourism, which according to the official information is around 35-40.000 annually. The world crisis has affected the tourism market too but we are still optimistic. Most of the tourists visiting Armenia are old people. Thus, we may assume that the world economic crisis has not affected them much and they still can afford to travel to Armenia.
– Why do mainly old tourists visit Armenia? Don’t we have interesting entertainment for young tourists?
– There are several reasons for that. First of all, Armenia is a country of intellectual tourism. We cannot compete with countries that have access to the sea, for example we cannot compete with France as they have traditions from the ages and people try to be there at least once in their life. We have potential for intellectual tourism, which is a great wealth. Even the countries which have sustainable tourism development such as Turkey, which hosts 27 million tourists every year, are making a lot of efforts to develop the intellectual tourism. Currently Turkey is trying to use the great historical heritage on its territory which was left by the cultures of Armenia, Byzantine and Greece. Even more, at international exhibitions Turkey is exhibiting the carvings of the Armenian gods on the Nemrut mountain.
– Is intellectual tourism profitable?
– Certainly it is profitable. If you compare you will see that the intellectual tourism is more profitable than sea tourism. Tourism has a chain reaction to the other sectors of the economy as when tourists arrive, they pay to travel companies, restaurants, hotels, restaurants and other sectors as well. Usually when they bring money with them, they spend this money in different places, thus by developing the tourism in regions it results in the opening of new vacancies.
– What is attractive in Armenia for tourists besides the old Churches?
– I don’t agree with you. We have not only several churches, but according to the official information Armenia and Karabakh together have around 40,000 historical and cultural monuments. We have missed the middle ages. What is the attractive thing in Europe? Europe attracts us with the architecture of the middle ages. However, our historical and cultural heritage is rather rich. Can you see places like the Matenadaran or the museum after Parajanov anywhere else in the world? One may go to England and see the Stonehenge but they can see another Stonehenge in Armenia too. The problem is in the services. In England tourists can go to the Stonehenge through beautiful roads, stop by and read the story and hear the translations in different languages. From this point of view the Stonehenge in our country is in a very difficult situation and as far as I know even there is a risk that the lands may be privatized. If we represent the Stonehenge in a better way, tourists will be more interested to see it. Our churches are excellent historical monuments. By the way, I am very happy about the fact that a rope way is being built from Halidzor to Tatev monastery. Once I was in Cyprus and I was looking for interesting sights. I didn’t find any interest sight other than a beautiful beach where I heard the story how Aphrodite was born from the foam of the water in this beach. From this point of view we have to make a lot of efforts and work harder to represent Armenia better in the countries that can be potential sources of incoming tourism for our country. The number of tourists from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which have more than 100 million population, only 2-3 thousand tourists are visiting Armenia. This is a very small rate as the German tourists are mostly interested in intellectual tourism. If we spread more information about Armenia in other countries, more tourists will visit Armenia.
– Who should disseminate this information?
– The government and the state should do that. This problem cannot be solved by private companies. It is connected with a lot of expenses and needs a lot of work too. From this point of view there are mechanisms which are not used normally. The high prices of airline tickets are a big problem for tourism to Armenia too. We hoped the competition between airline companies would reduce the prices but we don’t see any reduction yet. I talked about the European countries only. There is a huge potential in the US as well. There is a stereotype that tourism in Armenia is expensive but I don’t think so. Let’s divide the issue into two parts – airline tickets and service. For example a tour package for one week costs about 350 dollar, which is not cheap, but if you add the high prices of the airline tickets, the price of the entire package will be expensive. Russia has a great potential too but they don’t visit our country much. They say it is more expensive for them to visit our country than Europe.
– Does our government do anything to develop the tourism sector?
– I can’t say they are not doing anything. The problem is that this work is not coordinated.
– Do Armenians prefer to go to other countries?
– I am not sure but definitely the number of Armenian tourists has reduced compared to the previous years.
– What countries do Armenians prefer?
– Armenians like visiting Europe and in summer they like to spend their vacation on beaches. The new thing this year was the high demand in the tours to Tunisia.
– What preferences do tourists have?
– According to the official definition, a tourist is a person who leaves for a country and spends there at least one night. However, tourists also take excursions and other services as well.
– Many tourists are disappointed about the services in Armenia. Is it a big problem?
– I don’t think tourists are disappointed. I have not seen such things in my practice. You should see the other side of the coin too. Non-professional people should not be involved in tourism because it is about service. We have a lot to think about.
– What prospects does Armenia have for developing the tourism sector?
– Armenia has a great potential. The government has adopted a strategy, according to which the number of tourists should be increased during the coming 10-15 years. From this prospective a lot of work should be done at different levels, especially at the level of state administration system. To be real, tourism is making the first steps in Armenia. We should act faster to develop. We should correct our mistakes and move forward. I believe Armenia and Artsakh are attractive for tourism. It is a pity that still kin other countries Armenia is associated with the Genocide, Charles Aznavour and in some places the Armenian Brandy. Often we complain and say that tourism is not developed in our country as we don’t have sea. However, Uzbekistan, which is far from Europe, has fewer historical monuments and does not have a sea either hosts about 2 million tourists every year. Do you know how they achieved this number? The president of the country has instructed all Ambassadors to organize presentations for travel companies to represent their country by showing films, a seminar in participation of a professor from Uzbekistan, and in the end they treat the guests with their national dishes and tea. Armenia can do that too by using its brandy and barbecues. It does not require a lot of money.
– Maybe we don’t want that.
– I don’t see that they really want to do that. Very often we are visiting tourism exhibitions and trying to represent Armenia, and our Ambassadors in those countries even don’t provide some time to visit our desks.
– It is not good.
– It is painful. I can’t understand what the roles of Armenian Ambassadors are if they don’t support the development of Armenia’s good image. Travel exhibitions are organized for this purpose. They should think about this.