Last year, 1.7 million tourists visited Armenia. The government has set a goal to increase this number to 2.5 million by 2026.
According to Mekhak Apresyan, the President of the Armenian Tourism Federation, having up to 2.5 million tourists per year does not require much effort, we can easily reach this figure in the next two to three years.
"Compared to 2021, 2022 is essentially double the number of visits, but we still haven't reached the 2019 figure. If all goes well, we don't have another disaster, this year we can exceed the 2019 indicators, which was about 1.9 million. In other words, reaching 2 million should be possible this year.”
Experts point out that a large share of visitors was from Russia, partly because of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, and the second large wave of inflow was caused by the mobilization in Russia. According to experts, there was also a growing number of tourists from Belarus and Ukraine. The flow of about 100 to 120,000 people was caused by the Ukrainian crisis. Many got residency status and became migrants.
According to the Armenian Tourism Federation, thanks to the efforts of the tourism industry tourism activity could survive and even secure positions of Armenian tourism on the world market.