Deputy minister: 2024 to be record year in Georgia’s tourism sector

Turkish Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Mariam Kvrivishvili has said that the recent developments in Georgia will not hinder the tourism sector.

“The recent developments in Georgia due to the adoption of the law “On Transparency of Foreign Influence” will not hinder the tourism sector. Thus, 2024 will be a record year for the tourism sector,” Caliber.Az reports citing the Georgian media.

The representatives of the tourism sector raised the issue of revoking the law on “foreign agents” at a meeting at the Ministry of Economy, saying that the situation in the sector is difficult, reservations are being cancelled and there is a threat of fiasco of the summer tourist season.

“Our ambitions this year remain unchanged, and we say that this year will be a record year in the tourism sector and the most successful in history,” Kvrivishvili said on the BMG media platform.

The deputy minister noted that she does not expect negative consequences for the tourism sector amid the current events in the country, and her positive expectations will be confirmed by statistics for the second quarter, which will be published later.

She said that the first quarter was successful for the Georgian tourism sector, with a record income of more than $800 million.

According to the Georgian National Tourism Administration, the revenues from international tourism in Georgia reached quarterly record $807.7 million in the first quarter of 2024, which is 1.5 per cent more than in January-March 2023 and 39.6 per cent more than in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We had one of the highest passenger traffic figures in April-May, airline passenger load factors increased by an average of seven per cent while passenger traffic by approximately eight per cent. We have positive expectations,” Kvrivishvili added.