Next year, the Georgian National Tourism Administration (GNTA), responsible for tourism development policy, plans to continue work on improving the tourism infrastructure of Georgia and increase the popularization of the Georgian tourism sector.
In particular, the nearest agenda includes an improvement of service quality and increase in the number of tourists to six million in 2014, the Head of the Georgian National Tourism Administration (GNTA) Giorgi Sigua stated at a conference on December 18, as he summed up Georgias tourism achievements of 2011.
The event, held at Sheraton Metechi Palace in Tbilisi, was opened by the welcoming speech of the Vice Prime and Economic Minister of Georgia, Giorgi Kvirikashvili and was also attended by the industry insiders.
According to Kvirikashvili, it is planned to increase the number of tourists by 18%, the job places by 21% and the income of tourism sector in GDP up to 1.1 billion USD. In the first six month of this year, the tourism composed 730 million USD and more than 180 thousand people are employed in the sector. By the latest data, Georgia was visited by the five million international tourists.
"The world countries with the potential for tourism development realize the importance of it in the economy and implement various promotion activities. On this regard we support the development of tourism infrastructure, creating the new tourism products including the Meetings Incentives Conferences and Events (MICE), adventure and ski and international market diversification, Kvirikashvili noted.
Assessing the results of the year, Giorgi Sigua noted that the figures, as well as marketing activities implemented by GNTA towards promoting the tourism potential of Georgia, give the agency the right to call 2014 "an unprecedented successful year.
While speaking of the new projects and services offered by the GNTA, Sigua told the guests about the new tourist products including the wine, inclusive, the Meetings Incentives Conferences and Events (MICE), adventure, eco, mountainous, alpinist, and bike tourism packages which are possible to experience in different regions of Georgia.
"The new touristic web portal www.georgia.travel has launched this year, that is the best web page where you can get the complete information about the Georgias touristic places, tag themselves on the web and share photos among friends. They even can book the flights, Sigua noted.
The Head of GNTA also highlighted the importance of 0 800 800909, a 24/7 hotline where visitors have the opportunity to receive the free-of- charge information about touristic places, transportation, hotels and even the current and planned events.
"The main advantage of the hotline is that visitor can receive the information in various languages, Sigua noted.
In the nearest future, it is also planned to open the information center in Pushkini Garden in Tbilisi.
Those taxi drivers, who will pass the GNTAs English language courses for taxi drivers successfully, will be provided with the certificate and a English Speaking Driver sticker to put up on his car.
"We support the taxi drivers and at the same time try to improve the service in order the tourist to travel more comfortable, Sigua added.
The industry insiders, including the tour operators, say that the one of the main challenges of the tourism sector is the international visitor with the bags that had the opportunity without the tour operators help, to find the every touristic place.
"Moreover, there is need of coordination and cooperation of the government and the private sector but unfortunately we receive the information for instance about the new touristic places together with society, it would be better if we get such kind of information in advance, the Representative of the Geo Tour, a tour operator Teona Nemsitsveridze said.
Giorgi Sigua is confident that at the moment, all of the countrys resources are not being fully utilized. "Its necessary to develop better infrastructure, this process advances very rapidly and the next year we continue our projects with the doubled state budget he said.