- In Armenia, most of the population cannot afford to go away on holiday. They can afford it neither inside nor outside Armenia. And those who can spend a vacation abroad mostly prefer to go to the seaside in Georgia. There are also people who spend their holiday on the beaches in the Russian Federation, Turkey and Europe, but this group is much smaller than the previous one. In particular, Russia and Europe are available to a very small circle in the society. As for Turkey, despite the availability of recreation areas Armenians do not hurry to visit this country because of the bitter memories of the past and the presently hostile relations. Why do they prefer the sea in Georgia? It is a shame, but the RA citizens are dissatisfied with the high prices of Lake Sevan and other resort areas, which are not very comfortable for a holiday. Besides, Georgia is doing everything to ensure that everyone visiting this country becomes a "live promoter" of Georgia as a tourist resort on his return. These and other circumstances lead to the fact that the flow of the RA citizens to Georgia is increasing day by day.

 

 

- In Armenia, the quality of service in the tourism industry is gradually improving: companies import new and high-quality vehicles, upgrade recreation areas, but unfortunately, none of this helps to bring the prices down. In the resort areas in our country the prices of the service remain unaffordable to our own citizens, and often amaze even the citizens of other states. The overly high, I would even say, illogical tariffs charged by Armavia, the Armenian airlines servicing the countr, are another major obstacle to increasing the number of tourists coming to Armenia. Armavia, being the sole national airline in Armenia, actually enjoys a monopoly, and foreign airlines often charge prices that are initially and mutually coordinated and agreed upon by Armavia.

 

We are now watching tourists from neighboring Iran, who in the past years would come to have their holidays in Armenia, go to Georgia. All this is a consequence of many omissions in the tourism sector, a lack of investment competition, monopolies for building hotels and other resorts. In Armenia we have not yet come to understand that the investment made today for the person visiting your country this year will be compensated by the visits and investments made by other tourists. 

 

 

- Every year approximately 750,000 tourists visit Armenia: this is a very small figure when compared with neighboring Georgia. The number of tourists visiting Georgia last year amounted to 2,822,000. This year they are planning to receive about 3.5 million people, and according to the comprehensive program of 10 points prepared by the Government, the number of tourists will have reached the 5 million crossing line by 2015. It should be noted that according to statistics every tourist brings 1,502 U.S. dollars to Georgia. Unfortunately, in Armenia we cannot yet see any determination and concrete steps in this direction. The line agency that regulates the sector is very passive. You cannot roll out and develop tourism through the participation in a few international agreements and conferences, holding a wine festival in Areni and a barbeque festival in Akhtala.  Certainly, it is a sad fact that the rate of development of tourism in our country is 10 – 15% and it is conditioned not only by the activity of this agency. Again I will have to refer to Georgia where the growth in tourism sector is 45 – 50% and which, according to the report of the World Tourism Organization of UNO, published on June 22, has taken the first place due to its rates of tourism development. However, the fact that since January 2011 it has been forbidden for foreign tourists to stay in the territory of Armenia with their own vehicles for a period longer than 15 days is an absurd decision. It disallows these people to stay in our country for a long time. Whereas this would mean to have money spent here. Besides, this also creates unpleasant lines at Georgian border passes. This has already spurned and continues to spurn many foreign citizens from our country. Another important circumstance is the existence of a visa regime with a number of countries. The big difference among the tourists in our country and those in Georgia consists in the fact that Georgia has cancelled the visa regime with a number of countries, including Russia, to which it is hostile. Only one fact would suffice to mention: the elimination of the visa regime with Russia has led to a situation when this January – June, as compared with the same period last year, a 75 % growth in the number of the citizens from the RF was registered in  Georgia. The relations between Georgia and Iran, Turkey, the EU, and the USA, whether unilateral or multilateral, are regulated without a visa regime. It is surprising that we are still preserving the visa regime with Iran.         

 

 

- The development of the tourism sector should not only be proclaimed a priority. It is also necessary to undertake some concrete steps. Here we mean not only festivals which can be organized by any private entity or organization, and not the whole state. Here we mean the improvement of the legislation, and the identification of investment zones, the elimination of monopolies and the organization of a whole set of complex events. Isn’t it strange that a country the Diaspora of which is 5 million, id we are not to consider foreigners, is visited by about 700.000 people a year? I am sure that if we exclude our compatriots visiting Armenia because of nostalgia from the 700.000 people, the mentioned figure will be considerably less.       

 

In a certain sense i9t is a positive shift we see a social package given to RA civil servants this year, which enables them to have a possibility to spend their holidays within Armenia and Artsakh. It is difficult to consider this program a stimulus for the development of tourism, since in the previous years the representatives of this very layer left for Georgia, to spend their holidays on the beaches there. It was also yet unknown whether they will make use of this opportunity to organize their recreation, or, say, will spend it on medical services.