ArmInfo. According to the official data, drop of tourist flow by 1% to 1 192 120 people was fixed at year-end 2015. This was mainly caused by decline of tourists number from the Russian Federation, Head of Tourism Department at Ministry of Economy of Armenia Mekhak Apresyan stated at today's press-conference, noting that visits from Russia to Armenia were always at positive trend.
Apresyan explained such situation by economic instability in Russia particularly devaluation of ruble. At the same time he emphasized that in Jan-Sep 2015 tourism flow from Russia declined by 6% while there has been fixed a growth of number of tourists from Iran by 24%, from the USA by 40% and insignificant growth from Great Britain, Australia, UAE and Iraq.
According to him, this year Armenia intends to activate cooperation with Russia and to apply non-standard approaches for development of cooperation in tourism field, which are currently being discussed in the Ministry. At the same time in 2016 it is planned to actively work
in order to attract tourists from China and Iran. According to the National Statistical Service of Armenia, in Q4 2015 alone 256572 tourists visited Armenia, which is by 3.2% less compared o the same period of 2014.