According to several tour guides interviewed by Hetq, some individual taxi drivers at Zvartnots Airport are preying on gullible foreign tourists entering Armenia. The guides say that though the issue isn’t new, the situation has grown more disturbing and uncontrollable during recent months.

Tour guide Samvel Gasarjyan tells Hetq of an incident a few months ago when two people out of a larger group he was supposed to meet in the airport were transferred to their hotel by taxi drivers who asked the tourists to pay a fee of 30,000 AMD for “entering Armenia” after exiting the airport.

Gasarjyan says the situation is especially problematic when flights arrive from Dubai and Sharjah, mostly carrying Indians and Filipinos to Yerevan. Since they don’t know what cabbies charge, they are easy prey.

Tatevik Khorenyan, who’s worked as a tourist guide for five years, claims that some drivers demand that foreign passengers pay the fee to exit the airport, claiming that this is a mandatory charge when entering Armenia. She says taxi drivers use this scam when passengers have paid the cab fare to their hotel in advance, as part of the tour package.

Khorenyan mentioned another airport cabbie ploy. In this scam, a well-dressed man appears on the scene, presenting himself as a tourist manager. The man looks for the names of arriving passengers in some phony list and, not finding them, offers to take them to their destination in a private taxi. The drivers are his friends, and the passengers are fleeced.

Anahit Avagyan, a member of the Armenian Association of Professional Guides, tells Hetq that when she has to go to the airport to greet an arriving group, she knows that an argument with taxi drivers is unavoidable.

Avagyan says that when she gets to the airport, a group some 15 taxi drivers, mostly boorish types, have already gathered on both sides of arrivals hall’s exit, blocking the "Stop" sign and the tourists’ way out. The guide claims that when she’s asked police officers on duty to resolve the situation, the police officers never intervene.

"Taxi drivers hinder tourists' arrival and transfer, even if the transfer is organized in advance. They make it hard for the tourism sector to develop," says Avagyan.

The guides believe the problem at the airport negatively impacts Armenia's reputation. It leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the deceived passengers.

The tour guides are planning to send a letter on the situation to the relevant bodies - the chairman of the Civil Aviation Committee and the Police.

Photo: smolensk-i.ru