In terms of the number of visits to Georgia in the first quarter of 2021, Turkish citizens are leading, followed by residents of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In the first quarter of 2021, only 134.7 thousand visits of international travelers were made to Georgia, which is 89.7% less than in the same period last year, according to materials on the website of the National Tourism Administration.

Georgia's borders have remained partially closed since March 2020 due to the pandemic. In March of this year, the Georgian authorities opened air borders and increased the list of countries whose citizens can visit the country without mandatory long-term quarantine.

In the period from January 1 to March 31, 2021, 134,712 visits were made to Georgia, while in the same period of 2020, when entry to Georgia was free in January-February, the number of visits reached 1,333,089. For comparison, in 2019, with open borders in the period from January to March inclusive, international travelers made 1,617,548 visits to Georgia.

At the same time, only 116,566 of the total number were tourist visits. In 2020, this figure was 756,327, and in 2019 – 882,130.

Who goes to Georgia

Top 5 countries whose citizens come to Georgia:
Turkish citizens are the leaders in the number of visits to Georgia. Although the number of their visits decreased by 71.8% compared to 2020, they made 50,720 visits to Georgia from January 1 to March 31.

In second place are the citizens of Armenia, who made 18,733 visits during this period, which is 91.6% less than in 2020.

In third place were the citizens of Azerbaijan, whose number of visits decreased by 95.7% compared to 2020 and amounted to 11,314.
In fourth place, Russia has 9544 visitors in 2021.

In the fifth place, Ukraine has 4815 visitors in 2021.
The most affected area

The tourism sector, which employs about 150,000 people, has been the most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, so assistance to this sector and tourism-related industries is a priority of the Georgian Government. The Georgian authorities began to help the tourism sector in a difficult situation from the first days of the pandemic – they developed an anti-crisis package, which was implemented in several stages in 2020.
For more than 6 thousand companies related to tourism, payments of property tax and income tax for four months were deferred until November 1. In addition, 2.2 thousand hotels with a capacity of up to 50 rooms received a subsidy of 80% of the bank loan for 6 months. The companies also got the opportunity to restructure their loans.

However, experts working in the tourism sector say that the assistance is scanty, and it cannot compensate for the real damage that has been caused to the industry and the people employed in it. According to them, if the hotel industry was still able to find an alternative income by transforming itself into covid hotels, then tour operators, guides and other workers in the tourism sector lost everything that was possible.

Sputnik-georgia.ru