15.8% more tourists visit Georgia in June

Georgia is fast becoming a hot tourist destination for visitors from all over the world.

Already more than 2.6 million international travellers visited Georgia in the first six months of this year – a 13 percent increase year-on-year - while monthly statistics also showed growing trends.

In June 2016, 517,038 international travellers (tourists, transit, other) visited Georgia, which was 4.1 percent more y/y, head of the Georgian National Tourism Administration Giorgi Chogovadze announced today.

Some of these people were in transit however the number of tourists who spent time in the country was growing, he said.

In the first six month of the year more than a million tourists came to Georgia, while last month alone 228,866 tourists spent more than 24 hours in the country. This was a monthly increase of 15.8 percent y/y.

Last month the most international visitors (tourists, transit, other) came from:

• Azerbaijan (+1.9 percent);
• Armenia (-3.9 percent);
• Turkey (-7.2 percent);
• Russia (+4.4 percent);
• Ukraine (+35.3 percent).

The number of international travellers from the European Union (EU) who visited Georgia also increased:

• Czech Republic (+66 percent);
• Lithuania (+33 percent);
• Bulgaria (+25 percent);
• Germany (+20 percent);
• France (+19 percent);
• Latvia (+18 percent).

Georgia was working hard to develop its tourism reputation and this appeared to be paying off. Figures showed in the first six months of this year 2,636,313 million international travellers visited Georgia. This was 12.9 percent more y/y, said Chogovadze.

Of the 2.6 million international visitors, 1,011,680 were tourists. This was an increase of 18.1 percent y/y.

Between January-June most visitors came from:

• Azerbaijan (+18.1 percent);
• Turkey (+4 percent);
• Armenia (+14 percent);
• Russia (+15.6 percent);
• Ukraine (+26.3 percent).

A positive trend was also maintained from EU visitors:

• Latvia (+29 percent);
• Italy (+20 percemt);
• France (+12 percent).

Exceptional growth in visitor numbers was recorded from the following countries:

• Iran (+400 percent);
• India (+340 percent);
• The Philippines (+208 percent);
• Israel (+95 percent);
• China (+57 percent);
• Uzbekistan (+31 percent).