A six-night hotel stay in New York for Environment Minister Hambardzum Matevosyan cost Armenian taxpayers nearly $12,500, almost five times the amount permitted under the standard government accommodation allowance.
The expense, revealed in documents reported by Factor.am on November 12, comes less than two months after Nikol Pashinyan’s government approved an additional 94.6 million AMD (approximately $260,000) for foreign travel by his staff.
Matevosyan accompanied Pashinyan’s delegation to New York in September, staying at the Millennium Hilton New York One UN Plaza from September 20 to 26. His hotel bill totalled 4,543,065 AMD ($12,499.48), or approximately $2,083 per night.
Under Armenia’s official 2026 travel-expense schedule, the standard accommodation allowance for New York during that period was $421 per night, with another $148 allocated for daily expenses.
That means the minister’s hotel bill alone exceeded the combined six-day allowance of $3,414 by more than $9,000.
The United Nations, whose General Assembly brought delegations from around the world to New York that week, uses a considerably higher benchmark for accommodation.
Its December 2025 travel allowance schedule specifically includes the Millennium Hilton among four designated New York hotels, alongside the Grand Hyatt, San Carlos Hotel and Shelburne Sonesta. For these properties, the UN provided a daily subsistence benchmark of $870, including meals and other expenses, with approximately $670 attributed to accommodation.
For six nights, that works out to roughly $4,020 for lodging, compared with the nearly $12,500 paid for Matevosyan.
The UN figures are not binding on Armenian officials, and the organization does not require delegations to stay at these hotels. While accommodation prices were elevated during the General Assembly, it remains unclear why this hotel was chosen, what type of room was booked or whether cheaper options were available when the reservation was made.
Armenian regulations allow officials to exceed standard hotel allowances with specific authorization. Whether such approval was issued for Matevosyan’s accommodation, and by whom, has not been established from the available records.
The Foreign Ministry’s State Protocol Service initially paid the bill. A November 12 budget adjustment provides for reimbursing the amount from the Environment Ministry’s travel funds.
Meanwhile, Pashinyan’s administration had already increased its own travel allocation. On September 24, it approved an additional 94,622,100 AMD after acknowledging that the amount originally budgeted for foreign trips in 2026 was insufficient. The money was redirected from savings in other expenditure categories.
The two allocations are separate, but the New York visit involved considerably more public spending than Matevosyan’s accommodation alone.
A September 19 authorization signed by Pashinyan listed 20 delegation members, including ministers, senior officials and support staff. Their expenses were assigned to different state institutions, making it difficult to establish the full cost from any single department’s records.
So far, the reported $12,500 covers just one minister’s hotel stay. The total spent on the delegation’s accommodation, airfare, transportation and daily allowances has not been established.
The documents show how much taxpayers paid for Matevosyan’s hotel, but not why an expense nearly five times the published allowance was authorized. Nor do they provide the full cost of the 20-member delegation accompanying Pashinyan to New York.
