During the months of June and July, through Switzerland’s leading print and electronic press, Armenia has been presented to thousands of Swiss people as an attractive tourist destination, standing out for the diversity of its national dishes, its high-quality wine selection (which, according to the authors, is “the oldest in the world”), its rich millennia-old history and culture, and its rapidly developing, modern capital. This was reported by the Ministry of Economy.
The materials were prepared in May, during a familiarization visit to Armenia by Swiss travel journalists, at the initiative of the Trade Representative of the Republic of Armenia in Switzerland, Hayk Hovhannisyan, and with the support of the State Committee for Tourism of the RA Ministry of Economy.
Sixteen representatives of the Travel Journalists’ Union toured the sights of Yerevan and Armenia’s regions for about a week, gathering interesting information, human stories, and conducting filming. The dissemination of the collected materials to a wide Swiss audience aims to increase Armenia’s tourist appeal and boost the growth of Swiss tourists.
It is important to note that the materials also carry a positive political tone. Thanks to the work carried out with the journalists, the materials express undisguised sympathy for the Christian Armenian nation, which finds itself in a difficult geopolitical position and does not yield, as well as faith in the country’s future.
The target audience of the collected materials is not limited to Switzerland alone. The materials prepared in French by Swiss journalists can be used for other Francophone audiences, especially considering Armenia’s role in the Francophone world following the 17th Summit of the International Organisation of La Francophonie held in Yerevan in October 2018.
Below we briefly present the list of recently published materials.
The subscription magazine “Cooperation” is one of Switzerland’s most widespread periodicals, owned by the Coop department store chain; it is sent weekly to more than 600,000 homes (over 1.5 million readers). In its 18 June issue, Armenia is presented across 4 pages, complemented by photos and a beautiful article titled “Armenia Believes in its Future”.
In the 21 June issue of “Le Nouveliste”, the largest daily newspaper of the Valais Canton (over 110,000 readers), a similar article titled “Armenia’s Rediscovered Hope” was published across a full page.
The same article also appeared in the 15 June issue of the “Arcinfo” daily (70,000 readers), which is part of the same media group as “Le Nouveliste” and is published in the canton of Neuchâtel.
In the July-September issue of the German-language subscription magazine “Wendezeit” (about 30,000 subscribers), 7 pages are dedicated to Gyumri.
In the June-September issue of the magazine “Paris Match Suisse Edition” (50,000 readers), an exclusive article was published about Charles Aznavour’s renovated house-museum, which, according to the author, is soon to become a “world-class tourist attraction”.
Thanks to the visit, more than 15 thematic articles with original descriptive sections and impressive photos have been published on the website of the Swiss Travel Journalists’ Union (www.presstourism.ch). This series of articles is still to continue and, once completed, will be consolidated into a single electronic supplement that will be actively distributed in French-speaking circles. One of the articles, titled “Areni: The World’s First Wine”, has already been reprinted on Armenian sites in France, receiving fairly wide circulation.
