YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan on Wednesday urged Armenians to spend their holidays vacationing in Nagorno-Karabakh and called on local travel agencies to vigorously promote travel to the mountainous republic over Georgia and Turkey.
Georgia’s Black Sea region of Ajaria has emerged in recent years as the most popular destination of Armenians going on vacation in summer months. They are attracted by its seaside resorts and prices that are often significantly lower than in similar locations in Armenia. A growing number of Armenians also spend their summer holidays on the Turkish Mediterranean coast.
Sargsyan publicly complained about that as he met with representatives of about two dozen local travel operators. He said they should now pay much greater attention to resorts in Armenia and especially Karabakh, which is famous for its mountain scenery and ancient Armenian monasteries.
“If you don’t advertise [Karabakh] you will naturally have no clients,” he said. “People don’t even know what opportunities exist in Karabakh, what the tariffs there are. They don’t know that things are marvelous, service is marvelous there. Why aren’t you promoting [Karabakh] day and night?”
“Kobuleti [Georgia] and Antalya: you advertise them so much that even a person who will never go there knows about those places,” added the prime minister.
A representative of Karabakh’s tourism development agency present at the meeting offered the travel agents financial incentives to bring more Armenian tourists to mountainous republic. He said the total cost of a five-day holiday tour of Karabakh will now range from 70,000 drams ($193) to 110,000 drams per person.
Some of the agents sounded incredulous about the offer, saying that they have until now dealt with higher travel and accommodation costs in Karabakh. “Unless we see that [price package] with our own eyes we won’t send any tourists there,” said Ruben Grigorian of the Rumea travel agency.
“So you should be the first tourists,” commented Sargsyan. It was decided that a group of travel agents will leave for Karabakh on Monday to assess the tourism infrastructures and tariffs on the ground.
I had my honeymoon there in 2006. It was wonderful!
First and foremost, any and all Armenians heading to “coastal Turkey” to vacation, should just bury their heads in the dirt. The excerpt “a growing number of Armenians also spend their summer holidays on the Turkish Mediterranean coast.” in one bold statement perfectly describes the degenerate and backward mentality of some Armenians today.
One cannot fathom, who in their right mind would actually take a vacation along scenic routes of their people’s persecutors and oppressors. This would be like someone who is Polish or Jewish to decide to take a summer vacation at a dacha 20 km from Auschwitz, Germany. Instead of actually making a trip to your homeland and providing much needed support through some spending, you’re spending your hard earned dollars in Turkish pubs and coast lines in order to help fund anti-Armenian Genocide propaganda and Historic revisionism by the Turkish government through your spent dollars while on vacation.
It would be a gross understatement to call any Armenian degenerate, imbecile, or shameless for taking vacations, buying Turkish products, doing business with Turkish businesses, or exporting Turkish goods. Its time for some Armenians to start thinking more ethnocentrically before what shambles of a homeland you have left gets gobbled up by Azeris and Turks backed by supposed western nations claiming to care about Armenia or Karabakh. Wake up from your greed driven slumber before it turns into a nightmare. . .
My company has been promoting tourism to Karabakh since 2001. We are publishers of the travel guide book “ARMENIAN AND KARABAGH: THE STONE GARDEN GUIDE.”
The book is the first commercial guide in the US to feature Karabakh as an Armenian tourist destination and it has introduced thousands of tourists to Karabakh. It is available online from Amazon.com, from StoneGardenProductions.com, and from all the Armenian bookstores in Glendale. ISBN is 096721209X.
I don’t know , how is it possible to go to Turkey and even smile at their faces … Not to say – eat a bread baked by their bloody hands … I don’t get it …
My grandfather , soldier in Armenian regiments of Russian Army , was there the last from my family in 1917 …
Wounded 7 times – 5 times in chest , one in hand and one in the leg … For me – it is personal . I knew about these wounds ever since I was born – I just played with those 1-2 inch deep and wide holes in his chest … Do not forget and my kids know about that too …
They say the economy is gonna shrink by 20%, and the prime-minister wastes his time complaining on why his countrymen go to vacations to Turkey ?
Hmm, ever heard the word populism ?