The central streets of the Georgian capital has never seen such a large number of foreigners, including the Russians and Europeans. The impressions of the simple Tbilisi inhabitants, including omniscient taxi drivers, are not misleading. At a recent meeting of the Government they were confirmed by the Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, who reported happily that this year the country has achieved the ‘’impressing results’’ on the growth of the number of tourists and visitors.
The Georgian authorities are always trying to distinguish between these two concepts. The ‘’visitors," as opposed to the "tourists" visit Georgia on business or in transit, that is only a day or two. It is easy to distinguish the tourists, who wandering carefree with their families in Tbilisi, from the business visitors. And exactly the number of the tourists is growing rapidly by 11% per year.
According to Giorgi Kvirikashvili, Georgia was visited by 3.4 million foreigners from January to August. (For comparison, the number of the population, according to the last census, is 3.7 million). That is, by the end of the year the number of visitors will exceed the number of the permanent residents, because the peak of the tourist season has just started.
Giorgi Kvirikashvili
The most of the tourists still come to Georgia from the neighboring countries - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and Russia. But the number of the Russian tourists is growing much faster, by 20-25% over the past five years. The events in the neighboring Turkey contribute to this, but the experts say that the important factor was a competent promotion made by the specialized agencies of Georgia, as well as the fact that the official Moscow does not prevent, but contributes to the development of the Georgian direction. it is sufficient to mention the restoration of the direct flights between Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi and the Russian cities, as well as a virtually unlimited number of flights of the many Russian airlines, received the appropriate licenses.
According to the local standards, the revenue figures from tourism look very solid. Prime Minister Kvirikashvili said that the revenues amounted to $ 354 million in the first quarter. But the first quarter, in this sense, is not a determining factor. (Again, for comparison, Georgia's budget for 2016 is $ 3.3 billion).
The tourism in Georgia is developing, despite a number of systemic problems. The main problem among them is a lack of the budget hotels. A lot of four-, five- and even seven-star hotels were opened in Tbilisi and Batumi, but there are very few hotels of the economy class, including the family hotels, or, as they are called the boutique hotels. Thus, the tourists have to spend from 70-80 euros per night, or settle in the hostels, which are much cheaper but without decent conditions.
However, the number of tourists is still increasing. It is not difficult to imagine what the growth could be, if Georgia could offer the guests en masse clean and comfortable mini-hotels, working on the B&B scheme, at 20-25 euros per night.
Why are the tourists, especially from the neighboring countries, keep coming to Georgia? In addition to the geopolitics, there is a positive working traditional hospitality and flavor, lots of interesting tourist sites, as well as the impressive results of the restoration of the old blocks of Tbilisi, the development of the specialized tourism, for example, for wine lovers, equestrian tourism and family vacation in the mountains.
We should not ignore the health resorts, well-known since the Soviet times: the huge buildings of the Soviet era in Tskhaltubo and Bakhmaro, of course, are worn out, but the healthy air and famous mud have not gone away. They are still attractive for those, who know a lot about them.
The developed transport infrastructure, meager level of street crime and the quality of food also play a positive role.
The main bonus of the tourism is not the income to the budget, but tens of thousands of high-paying jobs and the development of small business, the ability to ‘pull’ all sectors of the Georgian economy out of the deep crisis, to which the country was plunged by the irrational, impractical and sometimes adventurist foreign policy of the previous period.
