Number of foreign visitors to Georgia has increased, but behind pre-pandemic level

Number of foreign visitors in Georgia

More than a million (1,094,400) foreign visitors have visited Georgia in the second quarter of 2022. This is almost 200% higher than in the same period last year. However, it still lags behind the pre-pandemic level, in which period of 2019, Georgia had twice as many foreign vistors — 2.2 million.

The data were published by the National Statistical Service of Georgia.

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According to the service, the largest number of visitors — 147,700 people — came from Russia. This is 19.3% of the total number. In second place is Turkey with 14.9%, and in third, Armenia with 12.1%.

The breakdown is thus:

• Russia – 175,400
• Turkey – 158,300
• Armenia – 136,800

According to the statistics service, during this period most of the visits (52.0%) were made for the purpose of recreation, entertainment and health. Most visited Tbilisi (512,700) and Adjara (375,300).

Tourist spending in the second quarter of 2022 amounted to 2.3 billion lari (about 850 million dollars).

According to the report of the World Economic and Tourism Council (WTTC), 483,000 jobs were created in the tourism sector of Georgia before the pandemic. Georgia was 78th in the world according to the share of direct employment in the field of tourism and travel.

In 2018, the percentage of workers in tourism and related spheres was 7.8%. Georgia was ranked 29th among 145 countries in the world.

The authors of the study speculate that in coming years these figures will increase by 2%.

The number of foreign visitors in Georgia