BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 12
Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
A total of 3,138 tourist accommodation facilities were functioning in Georgia with 47,638 rooms and 114,603 tourist beds as of April 2021, Trend reports via the TBC Capital.
The number of tourist beds increased by 5,167 in 2019 and by 19,769 in 2016-2019. Additional 390 accommodation facilities are set to be opened in the coming years to receive up to 37,000 guests at a time.
The largest number of accommodation facilities accounts for family hotels (1,294), which is more than 41 percent of the total, although its share in the rooms is only 17 percent and in beds - 19 percent.
The number of hotels is slightly lower (1,159), however, its share is 67 percent in the total number of rooms and 63 percent in the number of tourist beds.
According to the regions, the most 591 accommodation facilities are registered in Samegrelo-Zemo Savneti. Tbilisi with 498 hotels ranks second, followed by Adjara with 488 hotels. The number of accommodation facilities exceeds 300 in Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kakheti and Mtskheta-Mtineti. There are only 157 objects in Racha-Lechkhumi, Shida Kartli and Kvemo Kartli.
The situation is insignificantly different in terms of the number of tourist beds, Adjara is the first with 29,413 beds followed by Tbilisi with 25,128 beds, and Samtskhe-Javakheti with 17,645 beds. The least number of beds- 1,010 are in Kvemo Kartli.
In 2011-2019, the number of international travelers increased by 200 percent from 3.116 million to 9.358 million, including the number of tourists by 177 percent from 1.833 million to 5.080 million. In 2020, the number of tourists coming to Georgia amid the pandemic and COVID-19 regulations decreased 4.77-fold, to 1.087 million.
Due to the crisis in the industry, the construction of hotels has been suspended or delayed. Along with other small hotels, the opening of the 220-room hotel of the Luxury Collection by Panorama Tbilisi with a total value of more than $100 million, has been postponed for a year as well as other small hotels in Pushkin Square in Tbilisi.
Starting from April the number of tourists is growing dramatically for the third month in a row. In June the number of international increased by 362 percent, but despite such growth, the absolute numbers do not even reach a quarter of the pre-pandemic levels, while the government hoped to revive tourism by 50 percent.
TBC Capital is also optimistic in this regard and predicts that tourism revenues will recover by 40 percent in 2021, in 2022 will exceed the pre-pandemic levels by 10 percent. If the forecast is justified, Georgia will receive $1.32 billion in tourism revenue this year.
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