On June 15, 2011 just before the opening of the summer season, Vera Kobalia, the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development and Kakha Baindurashvili, the former Minister of Finance, held a meeting with the managers of several successful Georgian hotels. The meeting was initiated by the Georgian National Investment Agency. Present at the meeting were GNIA head Keti Bochorishvili and Maia Sidamonidze from GNTA.
The goal of the meeting was to discuss the hotels future development opportunities, the issues they presently face and the ways in which government can support them. According to Kobalia, and backed by official tourism data, demand for hotels in Georgia is increasing day-by-day. Tourists need somewhere to stay and Georgias hotels are becoming crowded. In Tbilisi, high-end hotels with over one-hundred rooms reached 100% occupancy in May, according to STR global, a US-based research firm that specializes in hotel benchmarking reports and the analysis of hospitality markets worldwide.
In 2010, more than two million people visited Georgia, an increase of 36% compared with 2009. 63.3 percent of these visitors live in CIS countries. The World Economic Forum's first annual Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report ranked Georgia as the most competitive tourist destination in the region, while its visa requirements are the most simple anywhere in the world. Tourists know a good thing when they see it; Between January and May 2011 879,065 tourists visited Georgia, up 44% from the 612,226visitors in the same period in 2010.
During the meeting, the parties discussed several aspects that should soon be addressed in order to make the work of the hotels more effective. Among the topics of discussion was infrastructure (including transport issues) and the development of IT technologies and other modern means of communication- mainly unified software systems for hotels. The participants of the meeting came away highly satisfied with the feedback they received from the ministers.
To further promote the tourism sector, the Georgian government has created free tourism zones, which offers investors highly desirable incentives: free land, free hotel master plans, exemption from income and property taxes for 15 years, connections to all basic utilities, such as gas, electricity and water, as well as critical infrastructure such as new roads. The GNIA has already received strong interest from Georgian and foreign investors in Anaklia.
Currently there are almost 400 hotels, guesthouses and family houses across the Georgia, for a total of 10,000 rooms. As the demand shifts from focusing on “price and budget” to “value and quality”, Georgia will be ready for new hotels, especially in the 2 – 4 star range. In terms of hotel types, there is a significant demand for traditional; boutique and design-led, budget concept, apartment-style hotels and resort complexes.
