According to Galt&Taggart, in 4M18, total international arrivals (tourists, transit and one-day arrivals combined) increased by 15.9% y/y to 2.1mn visitors. Tourism revenues increased by 28.7% to US$ 800mn in 4M18. This growth was fueled by tourist arrivals, which increased 27.2% y/y, accounting for 45.5% (0.9mn person) of the total arrivals. As regional trade recovered, transit visitors also increased significantly by 24.4% y/y while same-day arrivals remained flat. Arrivals increased strongly from Georgia’s top markets with Russia – up 31.2% y/y, Turkey – up 23.9% y/y and Iran – up 69.3% y/y, jointly accounting for 42.6% of the total.
Arrivals from the EU rose 24.1% y/y to over 80,800, with Poland, Germany and the UK accounting for 37.6% of the growth. Among non-neighboring countries, visitor growth from Israel, India and Saudi Arabia was most notable. We expect 4.2mn (+21.2% y/y) tourists in 2018, above Georgia’s local population of 3.7mn. We also expect tourism revenues to increase 22.4% y/y to US$ 3.4bn in 2018.
