YEREVAN, MARCH 17, ARMENPRESS. Armenia takes steps to gain a tourism benefit from the 17th Francophonie Summit which will be held in Yerevan in October 2018.

Zarmine Zeytuntsyan, president of the State Tourism Committee, in response to ARMENPRESS question said “it’s time for major events not to be held without a result”.

“Yes, 5000 people are expected to visit Armenia during these five days of the event, but this is not enough, it will again be the situation that we didn’t capitalize the Francophonie, like we didn’t capitalize the visits of Pope Francis and Kim Kardashian to Armenia. In other words, these events are not followed by further steps. But today we decided to move ahead, we will invite a group of journalists from France to Armenia before the summit, in May-June, we will tour them across Armenia so that they will prepare reports on Armenia and will distribute information about our country before the summit”, she said.

But as for the main days of the summit, tours will operate at a daily regime, there will be information packages in French about Armenia’s attractions, excursions in hotels. “In accordance with our policy and strategy we will try to ensure decentralization, will take them to provinces to get acquainted with our culture and history. We will have an online booking system, will work with some of our tour-operators who are ready to take this heavy burden on them, to deal with organizational issues and logistics”, Zeytuntsyan said.

She informed that works are already being carried out on developing “before, during and after” tourism strategy for holding the World Congress on Information Technology -2019 in Armenia.

English –translator/editor: Aneta Harutyunyan