YEREVAN. – About 800 thousand tourists did not visit Armenia from January to August; that is, inbound tourism alone lost $700 million in nine months. The Mekhak Apresyan, President of the Armenian Tourism Federation,  said this during a press conference on Thursday.

According to him, in the first half of this year, Armenia’s tourism lost $500 million: $350 million in inbound tourism, and $150 million in outbound and inbound tourism.

The expert noted that this crisis is still going on, including in domestic tourism, whose indicators for the first half of this year have reduced by half compared to the indicators of the same period last year.

Apresyan stressed that the 23rd package of the anti-crisis measures of the Armenian government is important, as it partially solves the problem of personnel, the main tourism resource, which the country is already starting to lose. "But first of all, it is necessary to restore regular air transportation—making a negative coronavirus diagnosis test result mandatory upon entry," the head of the Armenian Tourism Federation concluded.