NKR: tourism in disaster because of coronavirus

The threat of a new infection has almost paralyzed the work of small businesses in the tourism sector of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), as the flow of applications for travels has abruptly stopped, local entrepreneurs have complained to the "Caucasian Knot".

In Stepanakert, the "Varanda Travel" Agency, which is a minor private business, is almost without work, Arus Adamyan, the director, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"This spring, as compared to last year, there were much more people, who had planned their travels, but because of the epidemic, everything went into decline at once," Mr Adamyan has noted.

Because of the abrupt drop in applications for travel packages, the "Anahit Tour" Agency from Stepanakert has suspended its operations until the threat of coronavirus goes down, Narek Danielyan, its director, told the "Caucasian Knot".

"Already today we can state an enormous damage to the tourism sector caused by the coronavirus infection ... All the hotel facilities have felt this damage ... But we hope that with the reduction of the pandemic, the situation will gradually stabilize," Sergey Shakhverdyan, the head of the NKR's Agency for Tourism Development and Culture, told the "Caucasian Knot".

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 20, 2020 at 04:55 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.