Wednesday, July 19 2017 17:36

ArmInfo. The number of visits  of foreign citizens to Armenia in the first half of this year  exceeded 1.3 million, which is more than the annual indicator by  24.3%. The head of the State Committee for Tourism of the Ministry of  Economic Development and Investments of the Republic of Armenia  Zarmine Zeituntsyan said this during the July 19 press conference.   According to her, in TOP-3 of entries to Armenia includes  citizens  of Russia, Georgia and Iran.

Answering the question of ArmInfo, Z. Zeytuntsyan noted that during the reporting period the number of  visits by Russian citizens increased by 33.7% to 241 thousand. The  second place, according to her, was strengthened for the citizens of  Georgia, the number of visits exceeded 151 thousand, with Growth of  11% per annum.  And Iran is topping the top three with 89.8 thousand  visits, which is 27.4% more than last year. In particular, in the  TOP-10 entered also the entrances of US citizens (17.5 thousand),  Ukraine (12.7 thousand), the Philippines (10.9 thousand), Germany  (7.8 thousand), France (7.6 thousand), India (4.3 thousand .) And  Poland (4.3 thousand).

At the same time she stressed: "Interesting dynamics is observed in  the number of visits of citizens of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and  Iraq. Here, not so many of them are impressive - how much fixed  growth>.  In this regard, she reported that the number of visits of  Turkmen citizens to Armenia increased 2.3 times during the reporting  period, Uzbek - almost 3 times, the citizens of Iraq - 67.3%. And  only in June the number of visits of foreign citizens increased by  27.7% to 295.4 thousand.  In this vein, she explained that we are  talking about the number of visits of foreign citizens without regard  to the purpose of the trip. Statistics on the entry of foreign  citizens for tourism, according to Zeytuntsyan will be provided to  the public by the end of the month.

As the target markets in terms of attracting tourists, the head of  the State Committee noted the Russian Federation, the Islamic  Republic of Iran, the countries of the Persian Gulf and the  WesternEurope, with which Armenia has direct flights. At the same  time, she stressed the importance of developing domestic tourism.  Concerning China and Japan, Zeytuntsyan noted that the State  Committee is currently working on studying these markets.

According to the State Committee for Tourism, the number of  international tourist arrivals in Armenia increased by 18.2% to 599.3  thousand in the first quarter of 2017, which was mainly due to the  growth of visits by Iranian and Russian tourists - by 17.7% and 7.5%  respectively.