DMOS IN GEORGIA AND ARMENIA JOINTLY PROMOTE REGIONAL TOURISM ITINERARIES
Tourism is a significant driver of economic growth worldwide and one of the primary sources of income for regional and rural communities in developing countries. It contributes to the integration and development of regions, including less developed ones, acting as accelerator for economic growth and sustainable development. Many tourists relish exploring extensive territories and enjoy the changing scenery and lifestyles. In that sense, intraregional tourism has a high potential to empower travelers to positively impact regional and local communities, whether based on cultural or natural thematic threads.
USAID Economic Development, Governance and Enterprise Growth Project (EDGE) partnered with USAID My Armenia project to jointly implement several activities facilitating Georgian and Armenian Tourism Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) cooperation for interregional tourism development. In 2021, several exchange visits, meetings, and planning workshops were organized among Armenian DMOs Syunik, Vayots Dzor, Lori, Shirak, and Georgian DMOs Samtskhe-Javakheti and Visit Kakheti. These six Georgian and Armenian DMOs jointly identified interregional tours and tourism themes. The six DMOs, with the support of the USAID EDGE Project, continued this cooperation and finalized the product development and marketing of the identified interregional tourism products. DMO Lori from Armenia led this intraregional tourism collaboration, a first of this kind in the region․ Kristine Hovsepyan, the Project Coordinator from Lori DMO, says: “Initially, the aim of this project was developing and promoting transnational theme-based tourism itineraries for Armenia and Georgia. This project was first about collaboration, due to which six DMOs for the first time joined their efforts to create something interregional. The project gave an additional chance to develop the capacity of the DMOs, and the other stakeholders participating in the project activities, such as product development, marketing, and promotion. Although the process was quite challenging, the project developed DMOs’ capacity to implement projects beyond their geographical boundaries and come up with innovative approaches of itineraries development.”
Three tourism themes were identified that have the greatest potential for tourism development. These are Gastro Tour, Experience the Culture, and Adventure Tourism. Gastro Tour focuses on discovering, learning about, and experiencing the foods and drinks of different regions in the two countries, including restaurants, farms, plantations, vineyards, breweries, or at markets and local festivals. The fascinating past of these countries are reflected in the unique flavors, exciting combinations, and distinctive cooking techniques that make the particularities of Georgian and Armenian cuisines. Irina Israyelyan, the owner of IRIS — one of the oldest bed and breakfasts in the Lori region, believes “the guests are coming back for the flavors and tastes experienced once in my guesthouse, IRIS.” The professional violinist decided to pursue her cooking talent in the hospitality business, transforming her parents’ house into an accommodation service. She also offers culinary master classes, fully immersing in the local culture. Israyelyan further mentions, “there is a strong connection between Armenia and Georgia, and being situated on the highway connecting the countries, tourists often are combining them in one journey, so these kinds of initiatives are highly important.”
Experience the Culture theme promotes tours that offer opportunities to experience and understand the culture through the five senses and immersion into spiritual, religious, historical, urban, and rural experiences and intangible cultural heritage. Arthur Petrosyan, a willow weaving master from the Vayots-Dzor region, offers unique weaving master classes for visiting tourists. Arthur says: “although I have a unique and quality offer, I’m not as good at promoting my services. This project was a great chance to expand my network and to get involved in the thematic route, which is a great chance to attract international guests.”
Adventure Tourism features physical activities where the setting provides a critical backdrop for the experience, including outdoor adventure sports or endurance, journeys to extreme locations, or long-distance running, hiking, cycling, or riding. The routes in each of these tourism themes were designed based on the existing network of territorial routes, considering the distance between the selected regions, etc. Test tours were organized in all six regions in Georgia and Armenia that explored the specific itineraries for the regional tourism products developed for the three main themed routes. Teona Zhuzhunadze, the Communication Specialist of Samtskhe-Javakheti DMO in Georgia, notices “Many visitors coming to Georgia are sometimes interested in the Caucasus region as a single destination. So, the developed itineraries will serve this purpose quite well, especially the cultural and adventure tours. The Javakheti part of our region is quite popular with birdwatching, and as the test tour showed, most participants enjoyed it a lot.”
This project also supported the marketing and promotion of these new transnational tourism routes and products in the South Caucasus. The target markets for these products are EU, Germany, and France, based on the current tourism statistics and opportunities to capture new markets like domestic markets in Armenia and Georgia, Scandinavian countries, and the Middle East. An Umbrella Branding approach was chosen, reflecting the essence of the regional collaboration and positioning the new regional tourism products on the market through storytelling and compelling visual content. Marketing and Promotion efforts included creating the Facebook page Armenia & Georgia: A Journey of 1000 Tales for disseminating information, including a detailed description of itineraries. The DMOs are using the Tour Operator Network in both countries to present the itineraries and are working to develop partnerships with tour operators. Promotional flyers for the itineraries were developed to be disseminated via hotels, Information Centers, and other public events focusing on individual travelers. In addition, the itinerary passport created was shared with Tourism Info Center. Signage for the service providers was also developed to mark that the supplier is part of the Journey of 1000 Tales itinerary.
This collaborative effort is an excellent example of cooperation between Georgian and Armenian DMOs that enhanced the capacity of the participating DMOs and the local and regional stakeholders. This positive experience will be further shared with other DMOs in the two countries as a good practice — impacting the development of the overall tourism sector, the local tourism business and service providers, and enriching the livelihoods of local communities along the tourist routes in the two countries.
