The season has completely failed so far, - Eka Gvelesiani, the founder of Hotel Paliani in Mestia, told BMG about this.
According to her, the reason for the failure of the season is infrastructural and electricity supply problems, as well as insufficient marketing events.
"The season has completely failed so far. There are practically no vacationers. We have mostly Russian citizens, who represent a low-spending segment. Svaneti has an electricity supply problem and the cable cars are often shut down. Consequently, fewer tourists come for skiing.
In addition, for the first time this year, the Zugdidi-Mestia road was not cleaned on time, which caused traffic delays for several days. As a result, the number of tourists has significantly decreased this year", Eka Gvelesiani said.
According to her, various activities are planned in Svaneti from February, including championships, as well as a food festival, so the hotel expects the number of tourists will grow.
As Eka Gvelesiani notes, appropriate work needs to be done in the direction of improving the infrastructure, the most important thing is to solve the road problem. First of all, this requires political will. The hotel's founder considers it no less important that the National Tourism Administration should work with more efforts to promote the tourism potential of Svaneti by next year.
"Advertising in Western European countries must be grown, as this has been our main segment for years. We have organized activities in this segment, and unfortunately, we do not see enough efforts from the National Tourism Administration recently," says Eka Gvelesiani.
