Georgia’s Tourists Numbers Up 17.5 Percent in 2016

TBILISI – The Head of Georgia’s National Tourism Administration Giorgi Chogovadze announced Tuesday that the number of tourists visiting the country in the first seven months of the year totaled 1,401,914, a 17.5 per cent increase of 208,436 more visitors than in the same period in 2015.

The total number of international travelers this year amounted to 3,400,335, up 10.6 year-on-year, with the overwhelming number of foreign visitors coming from Azerbaijan (167,507), Armenia (166,769) and Turkey (140,234).

“Unfortunately, due to the internal strife in Turkey and Armenia, people in these countries did not visit Georgia in the same numbers they. According to our statistics, we lost about 12,000 travellers from Turkey and 14,000 from Armenia in July. Despite the drop, these countries are still way ahead other in terms of the number of visitors crossing Georgia’s borders,” said Chogovadze.

The year-on-year statistics for visitors from Europe also saw significant increases. The total number of travellers from Germany was up 18 per cent, Lithuania 17 per cent, Greece 14 per cent and the UK at 12 per cent.

A major spike in the number of travellers from developing countries in Asia and the Middle East was also registered. The number of visitors from Iran shot up 575 per cent, Syria 453 per cent, India 368 per cent and Egypt 263 per cent compared with July 2015.

By Eka Karsaulidze
Edited by Nicholas Waller