Yerevan, March 2 /Mediamax/. Armenia occupied the 74th place in the rating of the World Tourism Competitiveness, which was prepared by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

As Mediamax was told in the “Economy and Values” Research Center, which performs the duty of WEF’s partner in Armenia, all in all there are 124 countries presented in the rating.

From the CIS states, Armenia gave place to Georgia (66) and Russia (68). Azerbaijan occupied the 75th place.

The tourism competitiveness of the states was being assessed based on three basic indices: 1. the sphere of tourism regulation, 2. the tourism business-sphere and infrastructure, 3. human, cultural and natural resources.

According to the indices of the business-sphere and the infrastructure, Armenia occupied the 96th place. As to the indices of regulation and human, cultural and natural resources Armenia, correspondingly, occupied the 65th and the 62nd places.

Among the basic shortcomings of Armenia the authors named the following ones:

- The visa procedures with the countries, the representatives of which travel most (Germany, Italy);
- Environment protection;
- Domestic transport infrastructure, the air connection with other countries;
- The infrastructure in the sphere of air transport;
- The agreements on two-sided air communication;
- The absence of well-known international companies for car rent;
- The infrastructure of the cash machines for VISA plastic cards;
- The availability of hotel rooms;
- The effective level of marketing and branding;
- The use of internet in business.