Georgia’s ski resorts enjoy surge in visitors

Georgia’s efforts to make the country’s ski resorts Gudauri and Bakuriani popular tourist spots appears to be paying off – the number of visitors to the two winter wonderlands is at an all-time high.

Mountain Resorts Development Company released information today noting more tourists had visited Georgia’s ski resorts this year than previous.

Head of the company Alexandre Onoprishvili said that number of visitors have increased by 40 percent in Gudauri and 20 percent in Bakuriani. In addition, the sale of multi-day pass cards had increased by 20 percent, Onoprishvili said.

Ski resort Gudauri on the southern slopes of The Greater Caucasus Mountain Range in Georgia. Photo by Nikoloz Lebanidze.

Onoprishvili said the information was gathered by counting the data from the electronic ski pass systems at both resorts and by the number of multi-pass cards sold per day.

A multi-pass is the first regional ski pooling in Georgia and is provided by SKIDATA, a leading global supplier of access management solutions. With a multi ski-pass, visitors can enjoy slopes in Gudauri and Bakuriani, which combined have 11 ski lifts, 28 ski-trails and 44km of ski route runs.

Looking ahead, the resorts were investigating ways to make the mountain facilities more visitor-friendly, and in this direction, wireless Internet access spots will soon be added in both ski resort areas.

Gudauri is situated 75 miles from Tbilisi, near Cross Pass, at an altitude of 7205 feet above sea level. Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge

Onoprishvili said developing Georgia’s ski tourism was a major focus and both resorts were currently going through a development phase. Firstly, this could be seen with the introduction of artificial snow machines, which will provide a longer ski season until the middle of April, and now last week modern LED lights were installed at Bakuriani that will illuminate the slopes at night.

Gudauri has around 60 km of tracks with different levels of difficulty, marked and prepared using snow-cats. Photo by N.Alavidze/Agenda.ge

In the near future additional artificial snowmakers are expected be installed at two ski tracks in Gudauri and artificial lakes will also be built both winter resorts. The lakes will provide the snow machines with enough water to make snow.

Meanwhile, installation of artificial snow machines has already started at the Didveli ski track in Bakuriani and the first ropeway at Gudauri.

The addition of artificial snow machines at Gudauri and Bakuriani would help improve the reliability of snow cover at the two ski fields and extend the ski season for longer, said officials.