Armenpress News Agency , Armenia
 Friday


 Sun, clean food, adventures and first Christian nation: Armenia's
tourism image at targeted markets



YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Nowadays most of the tourists mainly
search for adventures, leisure, tasty and healthy food, sun, clean
air, sometimes a place far from city noise.

Ara Khzmalyan – director of the Tourism Development Foundation of
Armenia, gave an interview to ARMENPRESS talking about the ongoing
activities aimed at increasing the tourism flows to Armenia.

-Mr. Khzmalyan, what activities are planned for this year aimed at
increasing the flights and number of tourists to Armenia?

-There is a simple logic according to which the presence of direct
flights greatly contributes to increase in number of tourists. I think
the actions taken by the State Tourism Committee to facilitate visa
procedures will contribute to growth of tourism flow. But the direct
flight must be nourished by marketing measures. People will be
interested in our country and tourism potential, and of course the
business will understand that it’s necessary to open direct flights to
Armenia. For instance, it’s desirable to have a direct flight from
Egypt. We know that there are millions of Christians in Egypt, in
particular, the Coptic Christian community who can prefer Armenia as a
first Christian country.

Last year minister Suren Karayan’s visit to Lebanon showed us that our
country can be a very important destination for religious tourism. The
Armenian community of Lebanon is 200 years old, the awareness on our
country, culture is at the proper level. This year we plan to appoint
a person as a representative to Lebanon whose agency is engaged in
marketing campaigns. The awareness of country is a process which
should never stop and have an end. Our representative will work not
only in Lebanon, but also in the Arab countries of the Gulf. There is
a problem of getting well acquainted with the market, understanding
its features in order to implement targeted marketing programs. He
knows that market quite well and is a Lebanese citizen. These actions
will be taken also in other targeted countries.

We say Russia and usually understand Moscow and St. Petersburg, but
the Russian Federation is a broader concept, rather than the two
capitals. The entire northern part of Russia is considered as the most
lucrative part. This means that serious steps must be taken there
since there is a preference for sun, clean nature, tasty fruits, and
thus, we need to attract these people to Armenia as much as possible.

-What concrete steps and activities are planned to be taken in the
targeted markets, such as Russia, Iran, Arab and European countries,
and China?

-The main task of the Tourism Development Foundation is to increase
awareness on Armenia. This means that most of our activities is
planned for the outside world. In this sense we have a number of
events, international exhibitions, participation in thematic
exhibitions on wine, pilgrimage, cuisine tourism, different
advertising campaigns, holding Days of Armenia. We are going to
publish articles in leading international journals. We also work on
bringing bloggers and journalists to Armenia.

This year we plan to hold the presentation of the Russian Trace in St.
Petersburg. We want to show the traces of Armenian-Russian cultural
and historical ties in our country, such as historical monuments,
written sources, and so on. All these is just needed to be well
covered and presented. This is a new project and creates major
interest among our Russian partners.

-What steps are being taken in terms of infrastructure development so
that we can host more tourists every year?

-Fortunately, we have initiatives which launched last year and
continue this year, such as the opening of hotels, people renovate
their houses and provide to tourists in the form of guesthouses. This
is a very important issue since during the season we face a problem of
hosting tourists in hotels. We take steps to create an entertaining
environment in communities as well.

-What new directions and tourism result can Armenia offer aimed at
attracting new tourists?

-It’s quite a long time most of the tourists are not interested in
smooth and asphalt streets, as well as in comfort. The adventure
tourism rapidly develops, the private sector in Armenia carries out
significant works on this path. There are foreigners who even buy
houses in rural communities.

What the world needs today – clean food, natural and good environment,
sun, sometimes silence, far from city noise. In line with this we have
a great potential which is still not utilized. That is Armenia’s being
as the first Christian country. Pope Francis visited Armenia, more
than billions of people knew about our country’s Christian
significance. Our country is rich of the relics of Christian saints,
architectural monuments. I also want to state that the cuisine tourism
is also developing in Armenia, I don’t remember a guest who is not
impressed with the Armenian cuisine and hospitality.

Interview by Ani Nazaryan

Full interview is available in Armenian