YEREVAN. – An Armenia-resident family, which earns a bit more than the average, can vacation in the Spanish seaside than at the shore of Armenia’s [Lake] Sevan. The prices here [in Armenia] are very high and the recreation is not full,” Hraparak daily writes and continues:  

“And despite the high airplane ticket prices, vacationing in Spain is lot cheaper than, let us say, in [Armenia’s] Tsaghkadzor or Jermuk [resort cities]. First, [because] Armenian businessmen wish to get rich and receive back their investment fast.  

The other reason is that those recreation areas [in Armenia] are so scarce that they always have their consumer, even in the case of high prices. So, if they work in overload for several months under such prices, they will have their income, and that is not so little.     

If the people with average [financial] capability were able to enter this sector and build recreational homes, the competition would have grown and the prices would have reduced. But since very few in Armenia are able to ‘put business,’ there is monopoly and a deficit of recreational areas in this sector, too.  

Last, there are numerous ways to regulate price policy in the world, but our state prefers the status of a passive observer.”