National Tourism Administration Head: number of Russian citizens visiting country 52 percent down on 2019

Janiashvili said that Georgia “actively” continued marketing campaigns on target markets and noted that “some positive results” had already been visible, adding the target countries included Germany, Poland, Saudi Arabia and Israel, among others. Photo: National Tourism Administration.

Agenda.ge, 04 Aug 2022 - 20:24, Tbilisi,Georgia

Medea Janiashvili, the Acting Head of the Georgian National Tourism Administration, on Thursday responded to a study by Transparency International Georgia, which had noted “significant acceleration” in the rate of visitors to Georgia from Russia in 2022, by saying the number of Russian citizens among visitors had dropped by 52 percent compared to the same period in 2019.

Janiashvili explained that the 408,000 tourist visits from Russia, in the first quarter of 2022, had “only” marked 48 percent recovery from the pre-pandemic range and noted that Georgia had 67 and 80 percent recoveries, which had exceeded the figures of 2019, from Saudi Arabia, Israel and Kazakhstan.

Janiashvili said that Georgia “actively” continued marketing campaigns on target markets and noted that “some positive results” had already been visible, adding the target countries included Germany, Poland, Saudi Arabia and Israel, among others.

The Acting Head of the GNTA also said that the target has been to recover the figures of pre-pandemic 2019, after which the country would focus on increasing the number of international travellers.