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.
