Revolutionary Tourism. New Opportunity For Armenia

This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issues of revolutions and its possible effects on tourism. Revolutionary tourism describes the visits to revolutionary places. It may be interesting for politicians, researchers, state workers, journalists, writers, also amateurs of adventures and just tourists. The main purpose of the research is to analyze the meaning of the revolutionary tourism, its roots and main history, aims and directions and to find out the opportunities to develop that type of tourism in Armenia. The investigation of the topic showed, that revolutionary tourism is well developed in China and Russia, besides, in many places, such as Palestine, Egypt, Israel, Tunisia, despite the revolutions, wars and dangers, tourists are curious to visit that places. The methodological tools for the research were the following methods: analysis and synthesis, micro and macro analysis, historical analysis. The object of the research is Armenia, where a velvet revolution took place in April-May 2018. The revolution was peaceful, without blood, and was interesting for international media as well. Based on Armenian experience, some countries started the same protests in their countries (for example Russian, France). The empirical analysis shows that in the days of revolution, many tourists came to Armenia, who were admired with the national spirit of Armenians. They were astonished to see how Armenians sing and dance in the streets, presenting it as a unique Armenian way of revolution. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that Armenia has a great potential for tourism development and this case should also be used as a positive factor to present Armenia as a safe country abroad, and to develop a new type of tourism – revolutionary or ‘'velvet'' tourism in the country. The main conclusion is that tourism marketing in Armenia should include also the fact of velvet revolution which will be interesting for many tourists, especially Chinese and Russian red tourists. The results of the research can be useful for the state organs, private sector to accomplish marketing activities, also for researchers of tourism sphere.