Tovmasyan G.R., PhD in Economics, Professor, Tourism and Crisis Management Department, Armenian State University of Economics THE MAIN TOURISM ASSETS AND PERSPECTIVES OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT IN THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA The article presents the analysis of current statistics of tourism sphere in the RA and in the world. <...> The article discusses the main types of tourism, the main ways and perspectives of their development in the RA. <...> Nowadays tourism is considered to be one of the most rapidly developing branches of the world economy. <...> International tourist arrivals reached 1,133 million in 2014, a 4.3% increase over the previous year. <...> In 2014, travel for holidays, recreation and other forms of leisure accounted for just over half of all international tourist arrivals (53%). <...> Some 14% of international tourists reported travelling for business and professional purposes and another 27% travelled for other reasons, such as visiting friends and relatives (VFR), religious reasons and pilgrimages, health treatment, etc. <...> The purpose of visit for the remaining 6% of arrivals was not specifi ed [7, 3-5]. <...> According to UNWTO glossary tourism is defi ned as ‘’a social, cultural and economic phenomenon which entails the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or business/professional purposes. <...> These people are called visitors (which may be either tourists or excursionists; residents or non-residents) and tourism has to do with their activities, some of which imply tourism expenditure’’[6]. <...> The main types of tourism are as follows: leisure/holiday tourism, business tourism, cultural tourism, eco-tourism, study tourism, religious, pilgrimage tourism, health and medical tourism, visiting friends and relatives, agricultural tourism, sports tourism. <...> In Armenia tourism was anounced as the main sector of economy. <...> Incoming tourists of the Republic of Armenia in 2006-2014 [5] 76 Вопросы экономических наук, № 1, 2016 In the RA in 2014 the total contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP was AMD 578.5bn (12.7% of GDP) and the total contribution of Travel & Tourism to employment, including jobs indirectly supported by the industry, was 11.3% of total employment (133,500 jobs) [9, 12]. <...> The number of hotel facilities in 2013 in the RA was 229, which included hotels, hostels, resorts, rest houses, etc <...>