1,350,791 people have visited Armenia over the first half of this year – 24.3% more than at the same period a year before, Zarmine Zeytuntsyan, head of the Economic development and investments ministry’s tourism committee, told journalists on Wednesday referring to the figures received from border checkpoints, reports ARKA News Agency.
Zeytuntsyan still refrained from mentioning how many of these visitors have traveled to Armenia as tourists, and only said that the calculations are underway now. The largest number of visitors came from Russia, Georgia and Iran. Some increase in flows from particular countries was registered in Jan-June 2017.
The number of visits to Armenia from Turkmenistan grew 132% and from Uzbekistan 200%. High growth indicators were recorded also on visits from Canada, Iraq and Spain. The number of tourist visits to Armenia grew 18.2% in the first quarter to 298,533.
“These figures are unprecedented, and they are quite positive to us, but we have no intention to be limited to this and we are going to double the result at least”, Zeytuntsyan said.
According to her words the committee outlined target markets as early as in October. Those are Russia, Iran and Western European countries, with which Armenia has direct air communication, as well as Germany and Persian Gulf countries. She also said that the committee is now exploring new markets – China and Japan.
