Armenia's Hotel Association Sends Open Letter to Prime Minister

The "Armenia's Hotel Association" NGO has sent an open letter to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The letter states:

“Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

As you know, quarantine was established in the Republic of Armenia starting September 11, 2020. According to the new decision, new measures for the prevention of coronavirus were established for individuals entering Armenia.

Unfortunately, comprehensive information about the newly established rules and procedures is lacking. Having a single unified information platform available in multiple foreign languages would greatly facilitate the involvement of foreign tourists in hotels in Armenia, especially in Yerevan, thus ensuring occupancy as the tourist season approaches its end.

On the contrary, official media outlets are circulating information that not only hinders the flow of tourists to Armenia but also does not correspond to reality. As a result, potential visitors to Armenia prefer to cancel their already booked trips due to information discrepancies.

Hotels that are part of our association have already received numerous letters confirming the assumptions that cancellation decisions by tourists are unequivocally related to the conflicting information received from various public authorities.

Particularly, we would like to point out the information video circulated on Public Television, which describes the rules in place during the quarantine period. The video states that the borders of Armenia remain CLOSED for entry, except for special cases. However, the reality is that the borders are OPEN for all visitors. They are simply required to either stay in self-isolation for 14 days or take a PCR test and, should the result be negative hours later, exit isolation.

This video has been on Public Television's Facebook page since September 12 and has already garnered over 100,000 views. This is an unacceptable error, as the tourism sector in Armenia is facing unimaginable losses and is striving to resume operations, while any misinformation leads to ongoing large-scale losses in the sector and, in turn, for the state budget.

Representatives of the tourism sector have repeatedly appealed to the relevant authorities requesting the creation of a single unified informational guide to avoid misunderstandings, but to no avail.

We demand that government authorities finally create a single unified source of information that outlines the current entry rules for Armenia in all the foreign languages predominantly used by foreign tourists entering Armenia (English, Russian, German, French, Persian, Arabic, etc.), and certify that this guide will be the only information they rely on.

Only under these circumstances can we have confidence in the reliability of the information, and we will present it to all representatives of the tourism sector, including hotels, to disseminate this unified information among their potential and current guests.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, we kindly ask you to expedite a solution to this matter, as each day of delay leads to serious economic losses and exacerbates the crisis in the tourism sector.”