Deputy Ministry of Economy, Emil Tarasyan, in response to our question what activities are carried out to ensure the flow of tourists to Armenia, and why the prices in Armenia starting from the air tickets up to hotel services are so expensive, which scare off the tourists, replied, “We are investigating the reasons why the air tickets are so high. When we analyze the prices and understand whether the flights have become less or the flow of passengers has been increased, the flights have decreased bot the prices are gone higher because it is advantageous for every airline to make one flight with high prices than two flights with low prices. However, we need to understand why this competitive advantage is not used by other airlines for making flights in the same direction.”
To our question whether he is not aware of the high air ticket costs in Armenia and people are going to Tbilisi to take the flight, the deputy minister replied, “Being aware off is not enough, we are determining the causes. When we understand the causes, we will analyze them and provide the information to you. Different types of information are circulated which should be checked. They say that the price for a higher class ticket is growing, the price rises in the last day. When you buy a ticket on the last day, it is a tourist season, and it is clear that the price jumps on the last day. Therewith, it creates an impression that the price grows up and it is not substantiated. If the flight is booked and it is higher as compared with last year, naturally, there is a problem there.”
He said that we have two local airlines: “The meaning of the “open skies” policy is that our local and international flight airlines, the directions which are expensive but are in demand in Armenia are competition ensuring directions, where it is possible to carry out by several airlines, it is a business, naturally, each airline is interested in profitable directions. If there is a demand, the price is high, it will be interesting for other airlines to enter this market. Now, they will investigate and our airlines will conduct flights in competitive seasonal directions, which will result in the dropping of the ticket prices.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
