PTP#:		111TC09015
Start Date:		10 December 2009
End Date:		14 December 2009
Placement:		Izmir, Isanbul, Turkey
Participant profile:		Tourism cluster representatives: tour operators, travel agents, associations, and other tourism industry representatives from Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan to work with their Turkish counterparts on developing and promoting regional tours.
Status:		Completed

• Utilize the newly obtained skills in improving the existing regional tourism products,
• Introduce new regional tourism products which will be better tailored to the needs of the foreign visitors,
• Share the information and knowledge gained during the program with their colleagues,
• Develop new regional tourism products,
• Identify ways to efficiently promote cross-border tourism products in foreign markets,
• More closely collaborate with their regional partners in organizing regional tours.

The program consisted of two parts. The first part was the Izmir Tourism Fair and Conference held on December 10-12. Armenia had a booth at this exhibition and two organizations presented Armenia in that booth – Armenian Tourism Development Agency and the Armenian Association of Travel Agents. In addition to the exhibition, the Turkish organizer of the event (the Turkish Association of Travel Agents) included one session in its conference program that ran in parallel with the expo where Armenian representatives made presentation on Armenia in general as well as on the regional cooperation with neighboring countries. Around 30 people representing Turkish tour operators, Associations as well as regional authorities took part in the panel session and were given opportunity to ask questions to the Armenian presenters. It should be noted that Armenian booth gathered a lot of exhibitors and visitors of the Izmir Tourism Fair. Among those who visited the Armenian booth to discuss cooperation in tourism sector were the Vice Governor of Van, the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Van, and many tour operators from different regions of Turkey as well as representatives of the Van TV and Anatolian News Agency. The main issue under discussion was the regional tourism development potential in the border areas of Armenia and Turkey.

The second part of the program was held in Istanbul, December 13-14. This part gathered tour operators, relevant Government and NGO sector representatives from Armenia, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan to talk about regional cooperation. The Armenian delegation comprised of 9 members representing the Armenian Tourism Development Agency and local tour operators.

The first day of this 2-day program consisted of country presentations and round table discussions on regional cooperation, development and promotion of cross-border products. Representatives of the Turkish Ministry of Culture, Tourism and the Turkish Association of Travel Agents and Turkish Tour Operators welcomed the workshop participants during the first day of the program in Istanbul. The round table discussions were facilitated by invited tourism sector experts from the UK.

The second day was devoted mainly to individual B2B meetings. Around 40 Turkish incoming/inbound tour operators who are specialized in cultural, historical/archaeological and religious tours, who cooperate and sell tours to European, North American and Asian professional counterparts and who were interested in developing or expanding regional business to Caucasus region attended the B2B meetings and met with Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani tour operators to discuss regional cooperation and cross-border business opportunities. Given the fact that there are more than 750,000 tourists traveling to Turkey every year for the cultural/historical/religious tours and that many Turkish tour operators who are working on this market are looking to combine the tours with Armenia and start promoting regional tours the B2B event was a great opportunity to match the demand and supply sides.

The individual B2B meetings were preceded with 10 minute destination presentation made by each Caucasus country.

This was the first program that gathered tourism sector representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and initiated discussions on cooperation issues and the first step in establishing a platform for the effective dialogue among the tourism sector representatives in this region on which regional collaboration could be built leading towards economic prosperity of Armenia and its neighboring countries.

The program was co-sponsored by two international donors - US Agency for International Development (USAID) through it’s Human and Institutional Capacity Development Project administered by the AED and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany through German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) Private Sector Development in South Caucasus Project.


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