Eight million tourists visited Georgia in 2018

More than eight million international, non-resident travellers came to Georgia in 2018, the Georgian National Statistics Office (Geostat) reported today.

The number of arrivals equalled 8.7 million which is 9.8% higher compared to 2017,” Geostat says.

The agency states that 66.7% of international visitors were only tourists, the share of excursionists amounted to 27.4%, while 5.9% of visitors were both tourists and travellers.

In 2018 the largest number of visitors (1,204.3 thousand visitors) was from Russia, which amounts to 20.9% of total number of visitors and is 25.9% increase compared to 2017. The second largest share of visits (19.8%) comes on the citizens of Azerbaijan that is 0.3% less compared to the previous year,” Geostat says.

The majority of visitors (46.3%) belonged to the age group of 31-50 years.

In 2018, the purpose of the majority of visits (42.7%) was holiday, leisure and recreation.

The expenditures during the visits made in 2018 equalled to 7.9 billion GEL, which is 37.4% higher compared to the previous year.