Russia plans to redirect its tourists from Georgian resorts to domestic destinations

The Russian government has revealed plans to set up new resorts on the country’s border with Georgia in a bid to divert holiday-goers away from Georgian locations.

Olga Golodets, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, announced on Wednesday her government was in preparations for creating two destinations on the northern side of the state border to compete with counterparts on the Georgian side.

People travel to Georgia, crossing the border in millions. This is about a lot of money — they don’t just cross the border but also ski, eat, spend on accommodation, and so on.”

We will now be working to develop two resorts on the border with Georgia, from our side,” Golodets said at a country-wide meeting with regional governments.

Georgian resorts hosted over 1.3 million tourists from Russia between January-November of this year. Photo: Nino Alavidze/agenda.ge.

The Deputy PM also told the gathering the plans would take advantage of natural conditions of the selected locations, which she said were beneficial for developing tourism.

Golodets urged regional authorities to look at opportunities for attracting tourists to their localities, including festivals and sporting events.

Citizens of Russia were the largest group that travelled to Georgian resorts between January and November of 2018, with 1,341,127 individuals — an increase of almost 24 percent year-on-year — visiting various destinations of the country from Russia.

The figure was part of a latest report that saw the highest number of travellers received by Georgia in a year.