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20 Dec 2008
www.panorama.am, Dec. 20
Today cultural cycling race will be held in Yerevan in honor of William Saroyan. The race will start from the writer’s monument and will continue up to Komitas pantheon through the central streets of the city. The participants of the race will be given ties with Saroyan’s image, his thoughts of Armenia and nature. 17 Dec 2008
www.caps.am, Dec. 17
Armenia’s Second Winter Festival will be organized by Deem Communications, in collaboration with the Armenian Tourism Development Agency and USAID-funded Competitive Armenian Private Sector Project over the forthcoming New Year and Christmas period. The festival will largely focus on Yerevan, although some events are planned in the regions as well. The event is officially considered to be under the patronage of the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Culture.
The Second Winter Festival will once again give Armenians and foreign tourists alike the opportunity to experience some of the seasonal leisure activities of Yerevan and surrounding areas during the winter months. Furthermore, businesses will be afforded numerous occasions to tap into this winter market and promote their companies or brands to their targeted audiences and publicize their image.
One of the major sponsors is the Boghosian Family Foundation that is providing the venue (recently established Lovers Park) for some of the planned activities, including security and maintenance.
For more information about the Festival you can call Deem Communications office: 547211.
You can get the program from ARMENIAInformation Visitor Information Center, at 3 Nalbandyan Street. 17 Dec 2008
www.arminfo.am, Dec. 17
Ms. Pasqual, which tourism fairs in Italy have been visited by Armenian tour operators in 2007 – 2008? Speak on the impact of the participation on the Italian tourism market.
This year, together with 5 Armenian tour operators, ATDA (Armenian Tourism Development Agency), governmental agency that is entitled to promote Armenian tourism abroad, has participated in BIT – the most influential international tourism fair in Italy, which was held on February 21 – 24 in Milan. The Armenian stand was visited by dozens of tour operators and journalists, who were interested in visiting the country to provide coverage for specialized editions. In those editions a package of information on Armenia was distributed, as well as maps, brochures in Italian and CDs with images. Relations with journalists are essential to obtain maximum visibility of Armenia – either commercial, to attract more tour operators, or in general – to ensure the attention of millions of “would-be” tourists. In 2007, as a result of ties, which had been set at BIT and another international tourism fair in Rome, GLOBE, ATDA and CAPS organized two fam trips, which brought to Armenia 11 journalists and 9 representatives of tour operators. Eventually, only in 2007 Armenia was a headline of more than 50 articles, acquiring desired visibility for more than a million of readers and 13 000 tourism enterprises. In that same period, the number of tour operators who sell trips to Armenia has grown by 20%.
From the beginning of 2008, another 30 articles on Armenia have appeared in Italian tourism editions. At BIT, Armenian operators have had an opportunity to establish new business contacts and refresh the existing ones. As for now, more than 50 tour operators and travel agencies in Italy sell trips to Armenia. Most of them have included Armenia into their catalogues and Web sites.
For various reasons, Armenia chose not to participate to the GLOBE 08 travel fair in March, held in Rome. Instead, they selected TTG Incontri, the most notable business to business travel trade fair in Italy, held in Rimini on October 24 – 26. With its participation to those venues, Armenia intends to enforce its image as a favorable tourism destination on the Italian market, which showed a continuous trend of considerable increase of leisure tourist arrivals to Armenia. Number of Italian visitors, registered at the ARMENIAInformation Visitor Information Center has grown to approximately 62% in 2007 compared to 2006. The pace of growth of Italian visitors, in terms of tourist arrivals, is the third highest among European countries and absolutely highest among European countries which do not have direct aerial communications. These facts confirm the success of the global approach, executed by ATDA and CAPS in the promotion of Armenian tourism. The promotion, with its target to geographic marketing, along with professional quality activities, meant that Italian tourists and tourism industry now know the country better. Before that, the promotion of Armenia would come to the participation to one tourism fair yearly, with an opaque impact on the market.
On the whole, what operational opportunities does the Italian market provide for Armenian tour operators?
The Italian tourism market, with its annual turnover of approximately 20 bln euros, is the fourth largest market of outgoing tourism in Europe and the sixth in the world. That is why, after a thorough analysis, regular promotional activities have been launched, which made it possible for the Italian tourists and operators to discover Armenia as a destination. The work was ever more important, considering that before the participation of Armenia to external tourism fairs had not been backed with PR and marketing activities. I suppose that investments in the promotion of Armenian tourism will be continued and expanded in Italy in the near future, because the Italian market is very dynamic and interested in Armenia.
Armenia was featured in the “La Stella del Sud” (“The Southern Star”) television broadcast. What impact has it had on the Italian audience and business community?
The show attracted certain attention. Despite not very favorable airtime – 9.30 a.m. on Sunday morning, it gathered more than 22% of audience share. I have not directly been contacted by the audience, because the Armenian Tourism Development Agency had not been mentioned. But quite a number of tour operators contacted me shortly after to reiterate the necessity of major investments to get Armenia publicized through TV and other advertisement formats.
What actions or programs have been planned for the near future to promote Armenia as a tourism destination in Italy?
At the end of October Armenia participated at TTG Incontri travel fair in Rimini. Besides, the official Armenian tourism website, www.armeniainfo.am is being restyled and translated into Italian. We look forward to increasing the distribution of new booklets in Italian, which we hope to distribute also through the Armenian Embassy in Rome, and offering the opportunity to Italian tour operators to reprint them. The organization of further fam trips for tour operators and journalists and a road show for tour agents in the largest cities of Italy is also being considered.
What factors are mostly cited by Italian tour operators as primary obstacles for their activities in Armenia?
Italian tour operators complain for high prices for accommodation and the lack of parking areas with bars and toilets along the roads in the regions. They did not say what the desirable prices should be, but they complain that the prices for services of all kinds are constantly moving up, and the hotels are among the most expensive items in package tours. With all this, the prices are still acceptable – in fact, traveling through Armenia is attractive for its good ratio of quality and price, let alone the novelty of the destination, which in Italy is still little known.
What kind of package holidays are most demanded by Italian tourists?
Italians are mostly interested in cultural tourism of traditional format (guided tours). Demand for natural tourism and adventure tourism is growing, but they attract only small groups of people at the moment. For now, promotional efforts are focused on gaining renown for Armenia as a destination of cultural tourism. In the future, it would be interesting to promote natural tourism – mostly for independent tourists and the younger ones.
11 Dec 2008
www.panorama.am, Dec. 11
"EXPO BEAUTY 2008" fifth international exhibition is devoted to women. More than 40 participants have applied to present their talent and products to our women.
Every year LOGOS EXPO Center conducts 10-12 exhibitions, in particular “Armenia Expo”, “Education and Career”, “Health and pharmacy”, etc. 08 Dec 2008
www.panorama.am, Dec. 8
"Sunrise" cup championship is already over in Tehran, Iran. Armenian judoists managed to gain a bronze medal from the championship. Artak Abrahamyan (73kg) defeated his rivals and received bronze medal.
According to the source Armenian Judoists will also take part in World Cup Championship in Tbilisi.
04 Dec 2008
www.arka.am, Dec. 4
Global financial crisis has not affected the tourism growth in Armenia, Head of the Tourism Department of Ministry of Economy Mekhak Apresyan said Thursday.
Today tourism growth tends to decline all over the world and the same trend is seen also in Armenia, but no crisis is expected in the tourism field in Armenia. Tourism sector continues developing in Armenia despite the March events in the country and the Russian-Georgian conflict in August,” Apresyan said.
According to the statistics, 402,000 tourists visited Armenia in January-September – a 10.1% increase against the same period of last year.
Armenians living abroad constitute 62% of the tourist flow in Armenia. The remaining part is tourists from Russia, Georgia, EU countries, the USA and Iran. The stable growth of the number of tourists visiting the country is the result of a consistent government policy, Apresyan said.
Today, over 70 hotels function in Armenia. According to the statistics, since 2001 average annual growth of tourist visits has been 25%. Particularly, 318,000 tourists visited Armenia in 2005, 381,000 in 2006 and over 500,000 in 2007. |
