ArmInfo. Armenia entered the top five countries where Russian tourists spent most of their money during the New Year holidays. This is evidenced by the results of studies conducted by specialists of the Yandex Money service, RBC reports.
According to the source, specialists analyzed data of more than 600 thousand plastic cards of the service "Yandex. Money". In the end, they determined that the largest average check of one transaction during the travels of Russians during the New Year holidays was recorded in the United Arab Emirates. There, at one time, tourists spent an average of 6670 rubles. The second place by the size of the average check was taken by Austria - an average of 4,605 rubles. Closes the top three of Thailand with an average check in the amount of 4559 rubles. Also in the top five are Armenia and Germany. In these countries, vacationers at one time paid an average of 3953 and 3708 RR respectively.
Earlier ArmInfo referring to the Chairman of the State Committee for Tourism of the RA Zarmine Zeituntsyan informed that according to the results of 2017 the number of tourists visiting Armenia will exceed the figure of 1.5 million visitors. Z. Zeytuntsyan noted that according to official data, 1.172 million tourists visited Armenia during the reporting period, with an annual growth of 21%.
It should be noted that in TOP-5 the number of citizens visiting Armenia in 2017 was 447.8 thousand tourists, with annual growth of 31.6%, Georgia - 236.8 thousand with growth of 10.6% per annum, Iran - 180.6 thousands of tourists with an increase of 12.6% per annum, the United States - 38.4 thousand, with an annual growth of 35.8%, and closes the top five Ukraine with a tourist number of 22.9 thousand, an increase of 16.3% year-on-year.
In 2017, the government allocated only $ 200,000 to develop tourism, in 2018 - the amount will be increased to $ 400 thousand.