THE TEMPOS OF INCREASE OF TOURISM VISITS TO ARMENIA FOR THE FIRST SEMESTER OF THIS YEAR HAS BEEN PRESERVED

YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS:According to expert calculations during the first semester of this year 207,729 tourists visited Armenia. The head of the Territorial, Economic Development and Tourism Department of the RA Economy Ministry Mekhak Apresian told Armenpress that the data will not probably differ from the official one as well as from the last year’s indexes – 207,479 with miserable differences. People mainly from EU states, USA, Iran, Russia, Georgia visit Armenia. The flow from other CIS states is notably less. According to M. Apresian the geography of tourism visits to Armenia expands. People come to Armenia from the states never visited before – Scandinavia, Thailand, Taiwan China, and Japan. Last year the first group arrived from Turkey which was rather impressed. Such a group is also expected this year. Compared with the world tourism visits, which decreased for 3% according to the World Tourism Organization, there is no fall in Armenia, though miserable, nevertheless an increase has been registered. Diaspora forms 60% of tourism visits to Armenia. According to the head of the department the Diaspora has greatly contributed to the formation of Armenian tourism capital. This year also there is no sharp decrease of visits from Diaspora in the conditions of the financial-economic crisis. M. Apresian conditions the preservation of volumes of tourism and prevention of the serious fall by the state policy and the state-private sector cooperation in that sphere.