ARMENIAN TOURISM INDUSTRY BETTER PRESENTED IN ITALIAN MARKET THAN THOSE OF GEORGIA AND AZERBAIJAN

Noyan Tapan
April 29, 2008

YEREVAN, APRIL 29, NOYAN TAPAN. With the aim of developing Armenia’s
tourism sector, the USAID-financed Competitive Armenian Private Sector
(CAPS) Program assists both with participation of tour operators
in exhiitions and with encouragement other directions of marketing,
and the results of this approach are quite notable in terms of target
markets of France, Italy, the UK, Russia and the Diaspora, the CAPS
chief expert Alan Saffery said during a talk with NT correspondent.

According to him, the steps taken in Italian market in 2007, in
particular, participation in three exhibitions held in Italy are a good
example of progress made by combination of Armenian tour operators’
participation in exhibitions and other marketing activity.

The program’s travel marketing and communication advisor Nadia Pasqual
said that the Armenian Tourism Development Agency (ATDA) and Armenian
tour operators have taken part in international tourism exhibitions in
Milan for 5 years but no significant results were registerted before
2007. The reason is that after the exhibitions, the Armenian tour
operators did not carry out proper work on establishment of business
links, issue of press releases, and other marketing activity. As a
result, only a few Italian tour agents and journalists on tourism had
information about Armenia. N. Pasqual pointed out that it is already
expedient to create an Armenian representative office on tourism in
Italian market.

A. Saffery said that the CAPS is also taking steps to present Armenia
as a tourism place in the Internet. According to him, there is little
video information on Armenia in famous tourism portals, altough it is
first of all essential to provide information in the form of texts
and images. In his opinion, Armenian government spends little money
on tourism marketing: in 2005, 14 eurocents was spent per capita in
Armenia for this purpose, whereas the same index in Slovenia made
4.2 euros.

Nevertheless, according to N. Pasqual, Armenian tourism industry
is better presented in Italian market than those of Georgia and
Azerbaijan, and Italian tour agents have not established such links
with these countries as they have with Armenian tour operators and
state structures of the tourism sector.

Coordinator of the CAPS tourism cluster Armine Israelian said that
Armenian tour operators’ expenses on marketing are gradually growing.