YEREVAN, April 19. / ARKA /. More and more tourists from Latin America are visiting Armenia, according to Armine Adamian, head of Amistad Tour travel agency, who spoke to a news conference today.
She said tourists from Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Puerto Rico and some other Latin American countries choose Armenia as a tourist destination and many of them are not Diaspora Armenians. She said an increasing interest in Armenia may be motivated by search for new experiences, as well as by a desire to visit a new faraway country.
"So far, they are not very many, but in view of the fact that each of Latin American tourists visiting Armenia may act as a "live advertisement" for their country fellows, it is extremely important for Armenia", she said.
She said many of foreigners who visited Armenia last year had planned originally to visit Syria, but then refused to travel to that country because of the clashes between the government and opposition forces.
She said the major obstacle to the development of tourism in the country is the high cost of airfares.
"Prices for flights to Armenia are much higher than to many neighboring countries, and this makes foreign tourists to choose other than Armenia countries,’
she said.
The executive director of Eurasia travel agency, Gagik Mkrtchyan, said another obstacle to tourism development is lack of advertising and low level services in eateries outside the capital city.
According to the National Statistical Service of Armenia, some 843,330 foreign tourists visited Armenia in 2012, an increase of 11.3% from the previous year. -0-
