On the 21st of February all over the world International Tourist Guide Day is celebrated.
Armenian Association of Professional Tourist Guides organized a series of inspiring events dedicated to the professional holiday. The events started on February 20 in Holiday Inn Hotel, where the forum on “Tourism During COVID-19 And in Post-war Armenia: Analyses And Forecast” took place. Many guests, as well as colleagues working in the sphere of tourism were present at the forum.
Ms. Zaruhi Orbelyan, Vice present of AAPTG, Ms. Sisian Boghossian, Head of Armenian's Tourism Committee of RA, Ministry of Economy, Mr. Gevorg Orbelyan, Head of Tourism Unit at Yerevan Municipality greeted and welcomed the participants.
Ms. Efi Kalampoukidou, president of European Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (FEG) congratulated the guides on behalf of FEG and herself via video message. AAPTG is a member of FEG.
Ms. Anahit Avagyan, a member of AAPTG board presented an analysis on “The Negative Impact of COVID-19 on International Tourism” which is based on the data and reports given by the World Tourism Organization of UNO.
The specialists and guests invited to the forum greeted the participants and presented their point of view on the problem, and their speech was followed by an interesting discussion. Mr. Peter Nemoy, the CEO of the “Teatrica” theatrical laboratory, director, actor, expert in the field of Innovative creative technologies, the first man who moved to Armenian to support the Project 301: Armenia – the Land of Wise Men was among the special guests. Ms. Satenik Manukyan, head of “Magic Road” Ltd, Mr. Yasha Solomonyan, president of AAPTG, Mr. Nune Melkumyan, Adwise Consulting: Marketing and Communication, Ms. Anahit Voskanyan, Tourism Committee of RA, Ministry of Economy, an expert in tourism product development took part in this discussion.
From 2:00 pm until late afternoon there were free city tours “Let's go to Yerevan” for our citizens guided by the members of AAPTG, professional tourist guides. The tours were organized and implemented together with «Bus Voyage» LLC, the first and largest transport company operating in the territory of Armenia, which provided its comfortable buses, also with the support of Culture and Tourism Unit at Yerevan Municipality and more than 200 people joined and took part in these tours. The comments of our citizens were inspiring. The initiative was really rewarding as it was unique and was organized for the first time.
There was a special event-tour to Yerevan History Museum organized for the members of AAPTG after the forum.
A non-formal party followed all these activities for the members of AAPTG and guests in C.View Bar late in the evening.
We are sure, that together we can overcome all the challenges and we are full of hope that in near future the sphere of tourism will recover through our join and devoted efforts.
We thank our partners for their active support in the implementation of these events: the Department of Tourism and Culture of Yerevan Municipality, Holiday Inn Yerevan - Republic Square hotel Busvoyage Transport Company Arega restaurant.