Georgian reality

A number of Armenian newspapers are referring to Novosti Gruzii newspaper and writing that during the first seven month of this year 408,109 Armenians have visited Georgia, which is more by 22% than last year.

Armenians are the third in the list of countries visited Georgia most during this year (the most number of visitors came from Turkey – 810.698, and the second place is filled by Azerbaijan in the list – 483.317). However, if we view these numbers in consideration of the population number of these three countries (as to the percentage of the population), Armenia has the highest rate. A couple of days before that publication the South Caucasus Railway published information reading that 30,575 passengers had visited Georgia in the period of June 16 – August 16, which is more by 18,9 than the number in the same period of the previous year.

Most of Armenian tourists go to Georgia by car. A part of those people did not enter the Georgia for the purpose of spending their vacation on the seaside because there are people who visit Georgia for the purpose of buying and importing cars and doing other business. Whatever it is, there were many tourists among those 408,000 visitors to Georgia. Usually Kobulety county of Georgia near the Sea has approximately 20,000 habitants, but on August 20 this area had over 45,000 people. There were 25,000 tourists there, 40% of which were Armenians, which is approximately 10,000 people. If we take into consideration that every tourist spends about ten days there, it means that in a month this area hosts 30,000 tourists. This area has other counties and villages as well, which are located near the sea and host tourists too. If we add Batumi, a large resort city nearby, we will see that Georgia’s seaside region hosted approximately 200,000 tourists from Armenia. Every average tourist spends about 300 dollars in ten days being in Georgia, which means that a lot of dollars are flowing to Georgia from Armenia every year.

The sea is not the only thing that attracts Armenians to Georgia. It is not cheap either, so that if one stays in an average normal hotel, the mentioned 300 dollars will not be enough.

The quality of service is not good either. For example, in a restaurant in Kobulety one may wait for half hour till a waiter comes to serve the table. Even after taking the order they may bring a totally different thing to your table. There are many small details that do not let tourists feel too much comfortable in that area. The area is also too noisy.

Notwithstanding the mentioned shortcomings, many people are going to Kobulety even though nobody has announced about an intention to make that city a great resort area or advertisement. They are not advertising the area but a lot of construction works are going on there. In parallel with that the prices are growing as well because the demand is growing higher than the offer.

Instead of that, in 2010 the Georgian government adopted a law on making Kobulety’s region of 11.4 a free tourism zone, which means that those businesses that may invest minimum 625,000 dollars to build hotels in that area, will be free of income and property tax during the next 15 years. Meantime, they will buy the area for their hotel for a symbolic price of1 Lari. The government also takes the responsibility to provide all the communication and infrastructure components such as gas, water pipes, electricity and new roads.

However, most of such announcements concern Batumi city. For example, when entering Batumi you can see a poster with the picture of the Georgian president Mikhail Sahakashvili and American billionaire Donald Trump. “In five years Batumi will become number one city in the world,” is written on the poster. These are not the words of the Georgian president, but what Donald Trump said.

The Ajarian people are skeptical about this. Even they say that trump does not spend much money here; they mainly use his name for that purpose. This is a good option too. For example, people also say that the Georgian president is speaking about a hotel that has not been opened yet. However, everyone can see how the city is developing and large construction projects are going one in that city.

In 2011 the Georgians adopted Tax Free system enabling foreigners get 18% VAT that they have paid while being there. It seems to be a minor thing, but this is what drives people forward and attracts new people. The minor things concerning the service are easy to solve; the other things are the real values that attract new people.