President of Georgian Hotel, Restaurant and Cafe Federation talks about the expectations of the tourist season in Georgia during the current war in the region and notes that 70% of European tourists have canceled their bookings in Georgia due to the war.
According to Shalva Alaverdashvili, tourists flow from Russia is not high and only those who have their own apartments have come to the country, so they cannot be considered as a flow of tourists. He does not expect active tourist visits from the Post-Soviet Countries during the active tourism season for 2022.
"There is an opinion that too many tourists will come from Russia because they have nowhere to go. At this stage, everyone who came from Russia rented apartments. Citizens declare that Batumi is full of Russians, in fact these are people who came to their homes and live there. Their number has exceeded 30,000, it is considered a visitor to the country, although the tourist flow is different for us. In my opinion, the decision to arrive in Georgia on a tourist visit will be made merely 3-4 days in advance. Tourists from post-Soviet countries will refrain from pre-booking," Shalva Alaverdashvili explained.
The manager of the hotels and the representative of the tourism industry says that the biggest tourist flows this year will be from Israel and the Gulf countries.
"Our predictions for the end of the pandemic in January-February came true - the number of flights worldwide increased and doubled compared to 2019. Too many people miss the holidays and start traveling, however we have a new challenge in the region, we hope to end the ongoing war in Ukraine in time and get rid of the occupiers completely. We hope that the war will not hinder this direction much, but I will directly say that 70% of European tourists in Georgia have canceled their reservations due to fear of war. Israel and the Gulf countries have become very active at that time and we will have a large influx from this direction," said Shalva Alaverdashvili.
