Wednesday, March 28 2018 15:38

ArmInfo. On April 7-8 at the  Vanadzor Technology Center will be held a hackathon aimed at the  development of the tourism industry in Armenia. This was announced by  the Director of the Foundation "Enterprise Incubator" (EIF) Bagrat  Yengibaryan during a press conference on March 28.

According to him, more than 60 teams from Armenia's regions submitted  applications for participation.  "For the first time we are trying to  unite two developing spheres on one site, which will allow us to  obtain not only interesting but also effective solutions that will  contribute to the development of the tourism industry of Armenia and  increase the country's global competitiveness," he stressed.

According to Yengibaryan, the competition will be held in the format  of the classic Hakaton. Within 24 hours of the team, consisting of 2  - 3 people, will work on creating and developing ideas, products,  solutions, obtaining advice and support from international and local  experts. The jury will determine 3 teams of winners who, with the  financial assistance of the EU program (SMEDA), will receive cash  prizes of 2 million AMD, 1.2 million AMD and 750,000 AMD (1, 2 and 3  seats respectively). "There are no specific criteria, we do not want  to impose any restrictions on our participants. However, the winners  will be teams that presented, according to the jury's assessment,  effective solutions that have no analogues in Armenia, "he stressed.

In turn, the head of the State Committee for Tourism of Armenia  Zaruhi Zeytuntsyan noted that the idea of the forum arose on the  basis of monitoring data on the use of digital technologies by  tourists in organizing their trip to Armenia. "Today we have very  interesting statistics, which say that 45% of tourists visiting  Armenia use technology to plan their trip, of which 30% are booking  rooms in hotels online. Therefore, we need to work on creating such  innovative solutions that will allow the potential tourist to get  more interesting information about Armenia and to properly organize  his trip. In fact, today, the tourism industry faces serious  challenges in terms of applying innovative technologies, "Zeytuntsyan  noted. She noted that the State Committee is ready to cooperate with  all the teams that will present interesting ideas aimed at the  development of truism regardless of the prize places. The same  willingness was expressed by Deputy Minister of Transport,  Communications and IT Amalia Egoyan, according to which, through the  introduction of IT in the tourism industry, it will be possible to  strengthen both these areas. "I would like to actively involve  participants from the regions of the country in Hakaton who, I am  sure, will present interesting solutions," the deputy head of the  department noted. She informed about the intention to develop a joint  work program with the State Committee for Tourism, stressing that the  main task is still the need to increase the recognition of Armenia on  the tourist map of the world. It should be noted that Hakaton is  conducted with the assistance of the EU in the framework of the SMEDA  (SME Assistance in Armenia) program in cooperation with EIF, the  Ministries of Transport, Communications and IT, economic development  and investments, the State Committee for Tourism and the Lori  Regional Administration. The deadline for submitting applications for  participation in the technology competition is April 2.