GYUMRI, Armenia — On a chilly November morning twenty or so students scramble to find their seats in a small classroom which would look like any university auditorium but for the fact that this one is located under the gables adorning the attic of the ultra-chic Apricot Hotel in downtown Gyumri. These students, hailing from across Armenia’s ten provinces, are about to attend the first ever classes given at the Swiss-Armenian Academy of Hospitality (SAAH), a first-of-its-kind experiment in the tiny country nestled in the Caucasus mountains.
As of November 18, this elite institution of higher learning, a branch of the prestigious Swiss hospitality management school École hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), is opening its doors to Armenians looking to pursue careers in the culinary arts, hotel and restaurant management. Its stated mission is to elevate Armenia as a regional hub for hospitality and service excellence by developing the next generation of industry-ready global professionals through international standards and local relevance. This initiative, the brainchild of Swiss-Armenian entrepreneur and Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) Board member Vahe Gabrache, marks the culmination of many years in the making.
Starting from a meeting held with the incoming Armenian government back in 2018, the project, which is fully supported by the EHL Hospitality Business School, gained a brick and mortar home when the owners of the Apricot boutique hotel chain agreed to host them in their Gyumri location. This project, which is supported by the Armenian state, as well as the AGBU, acts as an anchor for more comprehensive redevelopment of Armenia’s second largest city as a center for tourism and light manufacturing.
Just down the cobblestone encrusted street from SAAH, in the heart of Gyumri’s old town, workers are polishing stones in preparation for the re-opening of the city’s historic market square. This project, the joint efforts of the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies, the European Union and the Gyumri municipality, intends to transform the space into a hub for education, culinary arts, and economic development which will accommodate workshops, local artisan booths, restaurants, and festival venues. The project also includes a French-accredited culinary school providing full-ride scholarships to thirty students.
The market is but the second footprint that TUMO has made in the beleaguered cityscape, coming after the opening of a state-of-the-art TUMO Center in the historic theater building. Hundreds of Gyumri youth take after-school lessons in coding, graphic design, robotics and more, often being recruited to work in the city’s burgeoning tech industry clustered around the Gyumri Technology Center, another initiative launched with almost 1.5 million USD in government funding over a decade later which has attracted big name firms including the likes of D-Link.
These investments in Gyumri’s tech, tourism, and hospitality sectors, along with a revitalization of the traditional textile industry, build on massive redevelopment efforts that in recent years have transformed the city through the near-total reconstruction of its neoclassical old town, major infrastructure projects including repaved roads and energy-efficient streetlights, and the renovation of central green spaces. These efforts, likely the largest of their kind since independence, have transformed the city which continues its slow recovery since being hit by a devastating earthquake 37 years ago.
