Georgia hosts over 6 million international travellers in 2016
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Over six million international travellers have visited Georgia in 2016 – a 7.6 percent increase year-on-year.
More specifically, 6,350,825 international travellers (tourists, transit, other) visited Georgia last year, 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 more than 24 hours in the country increased by 19 percent y/y. In total 2,714,773 travellers spent time in Georgia last year, said Chogovadze.
The highest number of visitors who came to Georgia in 2016 were from:
- Azerbaijan – 1,523,075 (9.3 percent increase)
- Armenia – 1,496,246 (1.9 percent increase)
- Turkey – 1,254,089 (9.9 percent decrease)
- Russia – 1,037,564 (12 percent increase)
- Ukraine – 172,631 (21.8 percent increase)
A positive trend was also maintained from EU visitors:
- Latvia (+24 percent)
- Lithuania (+16 percent)
- Czech Republic (+15 percent)
- Bulgaria (+12 percent)
- Germany (+11 percent)
The highest number of visitors came from Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey. Photo by N. Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
Exceptional growth in visitor numbers was recorded from the following countries:
- Iran (+485 percent)
- India (+199 percent)
- Saudi Arabia (+116 percent)
- The Philippines (+89 percent)
- Oman (+75 percent)
- China (+46 percent)
Georgia earns $1.7b from international tourism
Hundreds of billions of dollars has been injected into the Georgian economy through international tourism last year, said Chogovadze.
International tourism revenue reached $1.7 billion in the first three quarters (Q3) of 2016, which was $177 million or 11.7 percent more than in the same period of 2015.
It is expected the adjusted figures to show international tourism revenue exceeded over $2 billion in 2016,” said Chogovadze.
In the first 11 months of 2016 tourists spent 1,479,633 GEL (about $556,284/€533,402*) on their foreign bank cards, which was an annual increase of more than 10 percent.
*Currencies are in accordance with the latest National Bank of Georgia exchange rate.