10:56, 26 August, 2020
YEREVAN, AUGUST 26, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian had a meeting with heads of several companies operating in the tourism sector, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.
President Sarkissian said this is his second extended-format meeting with the tourism sector representatives and proposed to hold it in a practical environment discussing concrete assistance opportunities by the President and the presidential institute.
The meeting participants presented a number of problems, in particular touching upon the possible steps, including the need for state assistance, aimed at restoring the tourism sector in Armenia. They stated that after the previous meeting with the President certain actions have been taken on this direction.
President Sarkissian attached importance to the information both about the situation, the country and concrete areas. He also highlighted focusing on the local market in line with the foreign tourism market. “Domestic market should become one of your directions, and you need to support the local tourism to develop”, he said. “The main development assistance by you I see that you must be able to dictate certain conditions and demands for the right organization of work, ensuring service quality and the necessary hygiene. Over the past two weeks I visited many provinces, communicated with the local residents. I noticed that people have started to think about giving one or two rooms of their homes for rent which can become an additional source of income, especially when these infrastructures do not exist, there are no small hotels in each village”.
As for the assistance by the presidential institute, President Sarkissian proposed to form a working group and clearly outline the main directions. “We can assist you with participation to international structures or exhibitions at forums”, he said, adding that people need to know Armenia, what it is and what they can expect from Armenia.
He also touched upon the implementation of several projects and international events in Armenia at the initiative of the presidential institute which will also contribute to the tourism development and awareness raising on Armenia. “We are ready to cooperate with you within the frames of each project. Each of them has a connection with tourism in some sense. The first project is ATOM. It’s about the development of artificial intelligence in Armenia, and in addition to the city of artificial intelligence and cooperation with major companies, it also involves a number of other programs. One of them is the Armenian Summit of Minds. Here as well we are ready to involve you as a partner. The working group can directly work with us. Invitation is sent to nearly 3000 individuals, of which we choose 300.
The next one is STARMUS. I think that we can cooperate starting today. All these measures can contribute to tourism development. Many of the guests arrive with their families, discover Armenia and establish ties.
The next project is the Hay Park. It’s an Armenian project over which we expect the whole Armenian people to unite starting from the Diaspora to Artsakh and Armenia. We also aim at cooperating with you on the sidelines of this project”, the President said, once again expressing readiness to cooperate and assist the tourism sector representatives.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan