Russia's Plan to Poach Tourists from Georgia: New Border Resorts

On Wednesday, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Olga Golodets, announced a new element of her government's strategy to develop domestic tourism, particularly in the North Caucasus. Russia will build two new resorts in the mountains along the Georgian border, explicitly hoping to entice Russians to stay domestic for their ski vacations or summer mountain getaways.

As Golodets explained, the main impetus is economic; "People travel to Georgia, crosssing the border in millions. This is about a lot of money — they don’t just cross the border but also ski, eat, spend money on accommodations, and so on. We will now be working to develop two resorts on the border with Georgia, from our side,” the Deputy Prime Minister told representatives of Russia's regional governments. 

The plan for the new resorts is to take advantage of the natural lanscape and climate of the selected locations, opening a longer ski season with snow from November to April. Golodets called on the regional representatives assembled to consider innovative ways to increase tourism in their regions, including festivals and sports tournaments.

Georgia saw a record number of tourists in 2018. GeoStat and the Georgian National Tourism Agency report that for the first 11 months of the year, the largest number of tourists to Georgia came from Russia - 1,341,127 people, a 24% increase year-on-year.

The first ski resort in Chechnya, an autonomous Russian region which borders Georgia, opened in January 2018 after five years of construction works and multiple postponements. The Veduchi resort (pictured above) became the third to open in Russia's North Caucasus region and is located just 15 km from the Georgian border. There are plans to continue developing and expanded the resort through 2025, when developers plan to have several hotels and chalets, an ice skating rink, a spa complex, and a helipad, representing hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. This August, heavy rains washed out part of the road leading to Veduchi and the resort was closed for several weeks for repairs. It is not clear whether it will be fully operational for this year's ski season. There is currently only one 80-room hotel and a handful of guesthouses that service the resort.

By Samantha Guthrie

Photo: ncrc.ru