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The Tourism Development Fund of Armenia is primarily tasked with digital marketing and formation of the destination's pre-visit image amongst tourists, Executive Director of the Fund Ara Khzmalyan told reporters at a press conference.

In his words, the digital marketing strategies will boost potential tourists’ awareness about prime tourism destinations of Armenia and to help them to gain knowledge before visiting the country, recalling the experience of Georgia that spends 7 million Euro on tourism marketing.

“Our task is not about attracting people to visit and discover Armenia but to gain some knowledge about our country, its tourism attractions and available services before visiting it,” the speaker noted.

Khzmalyan informed that the Tourism Development Fund plans to participate at “Otdikh” (Vacation) tourism fair in Russia with number of tourism companies to represent the country’s tourism industry.

“Much work should be done to strengthen the motivation if a tourist, to convince and justify his decision to visit and see Garni, Geghard, and Zorats stones. The more reasons and occasions are created [for the tourists to visit], the more tourists will be interested to visit the country,” Khzmalyan said.

At the press conference, Khzmalyan also referred to statistical data, that some 1 million 250. 000 tourists visited Armenia last year. The number of tourists has increased by 30% for the period of January – May 2017 to compare with the data of the indicated period during the previous year.

Khzmalyan informed Armenian could accept 2,5 million tourists annually by the year 2020, suggesting only 10% of the Diaspora Armenians have visited the homeland thus far.