YEREVAN. – A total of 603,000 tourists arrived in Armenia in January-September 2012 thereby surpassing the indicator for last year’s corresponding time period by 9.4 percent, Deputy Economy Minister Ara Petrosyan stated during a pres conference on Tuesday. “The growth rate will be maintained and we will end the year with the 800 thousand limit,” Petrosyan added.  

In his words, considering the fact that global tourism has not yet surmounted the economic crisis, Armenia’s tourism growth rate can be considered high, since the average global tourism growth is 3-4 percent.   

As per Ara Petrosyan, Armenia is a country for intellectual tourism. But there is a need to make the tourists’ visit to Armenia become wider-ranging and more interesting, and holding a variety of festivals could be an option.