Over 5,000 foreign tourists from about 60 countries visited Nagorno-Karabakh in 2006. The majority, 1,120 people, were from the United States of America. They were followed by Russians ( 800), French (464), Canada (267), Iran (250), Germany (210).Seeing how Yerevan is lacking some tourist resources, one has to wonder how much Karabakh has to yet to improve!
Visitors were also from such states as Malta, Venezuela, Taiwan and other countries. Yuri Zakarian, head of consular division of the foreign ministry, said the number of foreign visitors last year grew 30 percent against the previous year of 2005.
Draft bill "On dual citizenship" currently discussed by Armenian Parliament and expected to be adopted during final reading will enable increasing population of the country in several millions.The many details can be found at the source, but look at the second paragraph above: if you have not served your home country, you will be required to serve in the Armenian Army. In other words, you can be dragged into the army as a dual citizen. How lovely is that?
Basing on the document, if person who obtained citizenship of Armenia has passed military service in the country he lived he shall be released from the same service in Armenia.
Armenia is the 74-th of 124 states in the international tourism rating list. Armenia is the third most popular tourist site among the CIS states and has disadvantage of only Georgia (the 66-th) and Russia (68-th).The source also mentions that Switzerland is ranked first, while Chad is last.
The competitiveness of countries in the tourism sphere is defined by three main parameters – corresponding legislation, business area and infrastructures and human, culture and natural resources.
Armenia’s competitiveness mainly suffers from visa regime with the states whose citizens go touring most frequently, problems with nature protection, lack of local air and vehicle transportation infrastructures, etc.
The Armenian government will assign 90 million drams for the construction of house-museum of universally known singer Charles Aznavour...Obviously, in the name of tourism, because I can think of just about a thousand other, better uses for a quarter of a million dollars. Can you think of any?
The incumbent authorities took the decision...presided by President Robert Kocharian.
...a tourist spends an average of 1000 USD during 5-6 days in Armenia. The majority of them are from the USA, Russia and the CIS countries.There's a lot of numbers fudging going on in Armenia, according to the source. Regardless, I'm surprised 400,000 people decided to go to Armenia, as opposed to anywhere else. Of course, it's hard to know what part of that 400,000 is of Armenian descent, but impressive numbers, nevertheless.
It was anticipated that 400 thousand tourists would visit Armenia in 2006. Robert Kocharyan himself mentioned the figure several times. Nevertheless, the reports of the Ministries show that the anticipations weren’t justified: only 380 thousand tourists visited Armenia during 2006.
The municipality will allocate land for building some 50 public lavatories, Karen Gevorgyan, trade and service department head of the municipality, told a briefing today. He said they understand the need of lavatories as tourism develops in Armenia.Something tells me that sterilization is a euphemism for - uhhh, what's the word I'm looking for? oh yeah - death! On a private note, tourists to Armenia inform me that animals which are no longer alive are left to rot on the streets. Thus, the true motivation for this news: more money from tourism as a result of expanded facilities and clean-of-all-living-animals streets!
The municipality also makes sterilization of outdoors dogs. Gevorgyan says at least 30 percent of outdoors dogs will be eliminated in 5 years. The municipality official said they had invited an American expert to share more experience in work with outdoors animals. “They do not ask money for that,” he said.
Less than half of 9,954 Armenian citizens who sought non-immigration visas for traveling to the United States of America last year were granted permission...4,324 applicants were granted visas, while 5,630 were denied it.Then the numbers get even more intresting:
...
the number of granted visas reduced to 43.5 percent of all applicants against 45 percent in 2005 and 49 percent in 2004.
...the number of applicants seeking tourist visas also declined. Thus, 22,946 applicants sought tourist visas in 2000, while last year only 8,535 Armenians wanted to see the USA as tourists. Also 419 people applied last year for student, educational and other visas.So fewer Armenians want to go to the U.S. as tourists. What accounts for this? Are they working more that they can't take a vacation? Are they afraid of applying, for fear of rejection? Are they going to other places, instead? If you were one of those people who didn't want to come here for a vacation, tell us why in the comments section!
Armenia is gunning for its spot on the tourist map by marketing its religious attractions. The country's current slogan is "Noah's Route, Your Route," a nod to the belief that Mount Ararat is the place where Noah's Ark landed.Any publicity is good publicity, folks!
We know Armenia's probably not working with Sweden's budget, but they could probably benefit from a more cohesive collection. Beautiful scenery? Check. Goat portrait? Check. Random, unidentified toddlers? Check...and kind of creepy.
In 2007, Armenia's nature reserves will be opened for tourists, RA Minister of Nature Protection Vardan Aivazyan told reporters.Hundreds of thousands of careless tourists creeping their way through beautiful, vulnerable Armenian nature: what could possibly go wrong?
He said that ecotourism infrastructures will be formed and tourist routes elaborated.
The Minister pointed out that the ecosystem of nature reserves will not be affected.
