BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept. 21
Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
China and Kazakhstan stand out as the markets with most potential in terms of expanding Georgia’s tourism sector, Trend reports via the PMCG's monthly report.
"In August 2021, the corresponding proportion amounted to just 40.8 percent, mostly due to an increase in the number of visits from Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan," said the report.
"The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has heavily damaged tourism, however, the current crisis and changing behavior of tourists also presents some opportunities to redesign tourism policies to bring greater diversification to the industry. Visitors from the Gulf states, the US, and some European countries tend to spend considerably more than the average visitor per visit and are already targeted by current marketing campaigns. However, China and Kazakhstan stand out as the markets with the most potential in terms of expanding Georgia’s tourism sector, yet both are currently receiving limited attention," PMCG said.
In 2019, the average expenditure per visit of a Chinese visitor to Georgia was 1,908 lari ($615.52), which means visitors from China spend nearly five times that of the average visitor from the largest source market, namely Azerbaijan (396 lari/$127.75) and higher compared to all other traditional tourism markets of Georgia.
Meanwhile, the average length of visit of Chinese visitors to Georgia was 7.7 nights in 2019, which is also longer than that of Georgia's traditional source markets. As for Kazakhstan, the average expenditure per visit for Kazakh visitors in 2019 was 1,818 lari ($586.48), while their average length of stay was 7.4 nights.
According to the report, in previous years, the number of Kazakh visitors to Georgia had been persistently growing and reached 103,611 visitors in 2019, representing a leap of 75.7 percent compared to 2018.
Moreover, there is significant potential for further development of the tourism relationship between Georgia and Kazakhstan courtesy of the recent introduction of regular and direct low-budget flights from three cities of Kazakhstan via FlyArystan, the easing of entry regulations, and through the general enhancement of economic cooperation between the two countries.
The number of international travelers increased by 538.3 percent in August 2021, compared to the same period of 2020, and declined by 77.3 percent compared to the same period in 2019.
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