Yerevan is hosting a four-day workshop on hiking trail mapping and promotion with support of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

The workshop will be held in the frames of the “Private Sector Development and Technical Vocational Education and Training South Caucasus” (PSD TVET) programme, organized in cooperation with the State Tourism Committee of Armenia and the Association for Sustainable Human Development NGO.

During the workshop, GIZ international experts, as well as experienced Armenian tour guides and representatives of tourism sector will hold plenary sessions and group workshops on development and management of hiking trails, trail marking, best practices in successful ecotourism, market niche, and the product offer.

“Among other priority areas, GIZ supports development and promotion of sustainable tourism in Armenia. As part of our main objectives in tourism, we focus on hiking trail development in particular. We hope the workshop will contribute to reaching this goal,” said Wilhelm Hugo, Team Leader of PSD TVET Programme in Armenia.

“Tourism is one of the priority sectors as declared by the Armenian government, and such programmes and activities are very important for development of tourism. Hiking tourism is dynamically developing in our country as we have all the prerequisites for it. In this regard, we need to specifically channel our efforts to these tour products that will allow us to promote our country as well as reduce the unemployment rate, which is crucial for Armenia”, noted Mekhak Apresyan, Deputy Chairman of the State Tourism Committee.

“Development of sustainable tourism is very important for sustainable growth of a country. Wrong and unreasonable employment of tourism resources during provision of tour products can affect the natural process of sustainable development, entailing environmental issues,” stressed Karine Danielyan, Head of the Association for Sustainable Human Development NGO.