Vardan Srtashyan, executive director of one of the hotels on Shiraz street in Gyumri, told Aravot that the flow of Russian tourists to Gyumri has stopped this year due to the Russian-Ukrainian war. “We are actually dealing with the third crisis. The first was COVID, the second was the 44-day war in Artsakh, and the third was the Russian-Ukrainian war. The Russian-Ukrainian war has directly affected the flow of tourism to Armenia. One of the reasons is the very high prices of air tickets because Russia lost a significant part of its aircraft fleet due to sanctions. The prices of tickets increased significantly- they doubled and tripled.
And that’s why people can’t afford to come to Armenia like previous years, relax, and go. In other words, the Russian and the majority of the Ukrainian flow, we can say about 80 percent, is not there this year. At least Gyumri, whose airport’s main connection was with Russia, suffered a lot in that respect.
Zvartnots in Yerevan may have wide connections with Europe and they come all the time, but the main tourist boom of Gyumri also depended on the Russian market, which has been blown up today,” said our interlocutor. According to Vardan Srtashyan’s calculations, the flight of one person from Moscow to Armenia can reach up to 150 thousand AMD. “You can buy a complete package to Egypt from Armenia for 150 thousand AMD, but if only the plane ticket from there is 150 thousand AMD, only to get there and it is not known what the price of that ticket will be after returning, it is natural that people will prefer their domestic resorts in the Black Sea region. The flows from Russia have definitely decreased, and Gyumri has faced a problem in that regard,” said Vardan Srtashyan.
He assured that Gyumri has always had Russian tourists who, coming to this city, used it as a transit to visit Tbilisi, Batu and other resorts in Georgia. Now that flow has been reduced by 80 percent. He mentioned that unprecedented competition has started in Gyumri: food establishments, restaurants, bistros, hotels, guesthouses, and motels are opening step by step, but the supply exceeds the demand.
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Nune AREVSHATYAN
