755,080 International Travellers Visited Georgia in the Last Two Months

The months of January and February showed a 10.5 percent (71,519) increase in international visitors coming to Georgia, said Ketevan Bochorishvili, Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia at a briefing last week.

According to the information Bochorishvili provided, the number of tourists who visited Georgia for more than 24 hours in the months of January and February 2017 amounted to 294,001, a 24.3% increase (or 57,417 more visitors) over the same period in 2016.

“Tourism is one of the top priorities for our country and a number of governmental institutions are involved in the process of development,” Bochorishvili said. “The arrival of each tourist to Georgia has a positive impact on private sector development, on the increase of job opportunities and on income growth. Our goal is to make Georgia a four-season tourism destination and the figures from January - February confirm a rising interest from international tourists and visitors in the winter resorts of the country,” she said.

The Deputy Minister went on to thank the Georgian National Tourism Administration, the Mountain Resorts Development Company, United Airports of Georgia LLC, Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia and other state organizations for their coordinated efforts to develop the Georgian tourism sector.

Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia are among the top countries of origin for visitors coming to Georgia and, as Bochorishvili noted, a positive tendency can also be seen in regards to EU countries, as visitors from Germany have increased by 35%, arrivals from Poland are up by 30%, tourists from Bulgaria have increased by 29%, and French arrivals are up by 19% for the first two months of 2017. There has been a 26% growth in visitors from the United Kingdom.

Iran (+438%), Uzbekistan (+211%), India (+129%), Israel (+65%), China (+38%) and Russia (+36%) all show a considerable increase in the number of international tourists travelling to Georgia.

Bochorishvili said that in February 2017, 368,010 visitors came to Georgia, which is 7,608 more than in the same period last year, or a 2.1% increase.

Foreign credit card operations made by international visitors in January 2017 totaled GEL 152,896,000, a 37% increase compared to the same period in 2016, Bochorishvili said.

She highlighted that these are the results of active marketing campaigns which promote the country, and a number of completed infrastructure projects, especially in the mountain resorts development sphere. The number of new airflights launched to Georgia was also mentioned as a very important factor in the increase.

Nino Gugunishvili