Aravot Daily asked the director of the Araks Hotel on the historical Shiraz Street in Gyumri, Vardan Srtashyan, whether or not Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s and President Armen Sarkissian’s active advertisements of Gyumri were effective. He was also asked whether or not there were people who listened to the President and decided to visit Gyumri for the holidays instead of the capital of neighboring Georgia.
“There have definitely been people who responded to his calls. Internal tourism in Gyumri developed rapidly this year. The majority of tourists came from the capital, Yerevan. After seeing the high quality of the services provided in Gyumri, the comparatively low prices, and the hospitable character of the people in this beautiful city, people are asking themselves why they should spend a lot of money to go to Tbilisi or Tsaghkadzor when they could save money and enjoy themselves in a normal urban atmosphere. Therefore, we are thankful for the advertisements on behalf of our state officials. But this advertisement is not only for the New Year. People came to the city all year and it’s normal that a lot of people will visit the city for the New Year.”
He continued, “It is safe to say that the New Year 2020 will break records in terms of the number of tourists visiting Gyumri. I do not want to say anything too radical, but there were no open rooms left at our hotel as of one month ago. Other business owners have not had any empty rooms for a long time, so they are now working on providing apartments and homes for daily rent.”
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“Of course, there are some business owners who are trying to sell their homes, but there are also people who are going far away. A New Year’s performance, excursions throughout the city, and dinners have been offered as a part of those services. These kinds of packages have been sold to our compatriots, which mostly consisted of people coming from Yerevan. So, many people are coming to celebrate the New Year in Gyumri. My only worry is that stores, restaurants, and cafes are not as slow as they were in the past. I understand that it’s the holidays and we need to celebrate, but the city should not be slow.”
He said that 90 percent of guests will be coming from Yerevan, and there are also people coming from Armavir and Ejmiatsin. According to Vardan Srtashyan’s calculations, 200,000 AMD is necessary for a family to spend 4-5 days over the New Year holiday in Gyumri.
When asked if it’s possible to conclude that the number of people leaving the city will decrease, Srtashyan said, “I do not want to make any estimations, but based on our experience, there has never been a year in Gyumri where apartments, homes, and hotels were filled up this quickly. People are calling to make reservations, but we have to tell them that we unfortunately don’t have any spare rooms. The best data can be found on booking.com. There are approximately 150-160 registered businesses on the site, and you can see for yourselves how many open spots there are left.”
Nune Arevshatyan
Photo from Karen Gasparyan’s Facebook page
