YEREVAN, APRIL 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The March 1 events have had some effect on the number of tourists to Armenia: some groups of tourists cancelled their trips to our country, the head of the tourism department of the RA ministry of trade and economic development Mekhak Apresian said at the March 31 press conference to discuss the results of a one-year study on international travels to Armenia. According to marketing director of the Armenian Tourism Development Agency (ATDA) Syuzanna Azoyan, 700-800 tourists from Germany cancelled their trips because of the March 1 events. She said these trips could have been made, if higher security had been ensured, which, however, would have increased 2-3fold the cost of tour packages. Answering the question about what steps have been taken by Armenia in response to Azerbaijan's statements to avoid visiting Armenia, S. Azoyan stated that the warning about visits to Armenia was immediately removed from the French MFA website after the Armenian embassy has sent a letter to the MFA of France, while the German ministry of foreign affairs had declared it would remove the warning after the lifting of the state of emergency, which was done. S. Azoyan said that "all tour operators were informed about it". In her words, political instability, shocks, outbreaks of a disease in any country have an impact on the number of tourists. However, the effect of the March 1 events is not so considerable that the matter concerns discontiniation of tourism development in Armenia. M. Apresian added that if a tourist decides to visit a country, he/she will do so when the the event to have resulted in the trip's delay is over.

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