YEREVAN, July 19. /ARKA/. Some 1,350,791 people have visited Armenia over the first half of this year – 24.3% more than at the same period a year before, Zarmine Zeytuntsyan, head of the economic development and investments ministry's tourism committee, told journalists on Wednesday referring to the figures received from border checkpoints.

She still refrained from mentioning how many of these visitors have traveled to Armenia as tourists, and only said that appropriate calculations are under way now.

The largest number of visitors came from Russia, Georgia and Iran. Some increase in flows from particular countries was seen in Jan-June 2017.

The number of visits to Armenia from Turkmenistan grew 132% and from Uzbekistan 200%.

High growth indicators were recorded also on visits from Canada, Iraq and Spain.  

Zeytuntsyan said that the number of tourist visits to Armenia grew 18.2% in the first quarter to 298,533.

«These figures are unprecedented, and they are quite positive to us, but we have no intention to be limited to this and we are going to double the result at least,» she said.

In her words the committee outlined target markets yet in October. They are Russia, Iran and Western Europe countries, with which Armenia has direct air communication, as well as Germany and Persian Gulf countries.  

She also said that the committee is exploring now new markets – China and Japan.

In its program, the government is planning to double the number of visits to Armenia to AMD 3 million by 2020.

According to the National Statistical Service, Armenia hosted 1 259,657 tourists in 2016 recording a 5.7% growth.

Tourists from the Commonwealth of Independent States dominated the inflow – 21.7% came from Russia, 25.8% from the European Union and 48.5% from other countries. –0—-