ONLY 60-70 THSD PEOPLE OF THE TOTAL NUMBER OF THOSE VISITING ARMENIA EMPLOY SERVICES OF TOUR OPERATORS: EXPERT
ArmInfo
2009-04-16 17:12:00
Only 60-70 thsd people of the total number of those visiting Armenia
employ the services of tour operators, they arrive so to say by the
rules of the organized tourism, Chairman of the Association of Hotels
of Armenia Hakop Hakopyan told journalists today.
‘The remaining flow of the people visiting Armenia is divided into
different groups. This flow includes even the people who regularly
leave the country for earnings and return to the Motherland with the
same regularity. As for the tourists arriving in Armenia from abroad
and having no Armenian citizenship, they are divided into two groups:
the tourists and Armenians who live in the countries of the Diaspora
and arrive in Armenia to see their relatives’, he said.
According to H. Hakopyan, these people do not employ the services
of the hotel business for quite clear reasons, so, conventionally,
they are not considered tourists. ‘In view of the crisis, the rates
of hotel construction notably slowed down, no new investments are
received and many building projects in the regions have already been
frozen. Only the hotels at the stage of completion will be finished and
opened, since their owners will lose more if suspend the construction
launched’, H. Hakopyan resumed.
To note, according to the data of the National Statistical Service
of Armenia, 558,000 tourists visited Armenia in 2008.