The Armenian government, at its Cabinet meeting Thursday, made a decision to set up tourist centers in Armenia.

The need for this decision stems from the imperative of coordinated and proportionate territorial development of Armenia’s tourist destinations.

The explanation of this states that the current state of tourism infrastructure in Armenia, especially outside capital Yerevan, does not provide sufficient opportunities to serve a larger number of tourists and tourists with high solvency. In particular, it is necessary to form tourist routes, centers (clusters) in new thematic directions. In addition, many roads leading to tourist attractions in Armenia are not well-maintained and are not provided with tourist signs and sanitary conditions—including sanitary and hygienic nodes.

Armenia's tourist destinations are not yet ready for large-scale visitors.

In the Travel & Tourism Development Index 2024, Armenia ranks 84th in the “Infrastructure and Services” sub-index, behind its neighbors Turkey (31st), Georgia (50th), Azerbaijan (55th), and Iran (77th).

The purpose of this decision to set up tourist centers in Armenia is to ensure centralized, systematic management of tourist destinations, to bring settlements with tourism potential into line with international standards, to emphasize and protect the landscapes, biodiversity, tangible and intangible cultural diversity, and local values of the given settlement environment, to monitor and evaluate the results of activities and programs aimed at tourism development, to improve public-private sector partnerships and the active involvement of communities, to improve communication, infrastructure, to attract investments, to ensure the provision of infrastructure, to improve their quality, to modernize these services, the infrastructure aimed at servicing them, to ensure access to mobile and fixed internet or to improve the quality of internet connection, and to promote more efficient use of natural resources by entities involved in the tourism sector of Armenia, ensuring sustainable development.