Page 61 - bne_Magazine_March_2018

bne March 2018
7.6mn. That represents a 19% increase over 2016, which held the previous record. Importantly, every world region (as designated by the agency) saw double digit growth.
The top visiting nationalities are mostly the ones one would expect – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkey – but there are a few surprises as well. Though China (over 21,000 visitors, enough for a respectable 54% jump) tends to get local and international attention for its burgeoning ties
with Georgia, it was India that sent some 60,000 visitors to Georgia last year, marking a 64% increase; Iran, long a healthy contributor to Georgian tourism, saw massive 118% growth
in 2017 at 323,000 visitors; and Saudi Arabia, though starting from a lower base, saw an incredible 165% growth to more than 56,000 visitors.
Saudi Arabia’s impressive numbers look less like great luck and more like the fruits of a working strategy when one
digs into the numbers. In the Middle East, as designated by the agency (for example, Israel is lumped with Europe, and Iran with South Asia), visitor volume swelled by over 84% last year – and no less than five countries in the region saw triple digit growth, with most other Mideast states posting solid to spectacular double digit figures. Clearly, Georgia is finding traction in that region as an attractive, affordable, and relatively nearby destination.
More anecdotally, in my travels to Georgia last year, the growth numbers of Middle Eastern tourists was visible and obvious. This was particularly evident in the mountainous regions, where the parks and boulevards of picturesque resort towns like Borjomiwere filled with Arabic-speaking vacationers. As it turns out, compared to the oppressive heat of a Middle Eastern summer, Borjomi’s cool mountain air and famed mineral spring water is a pretty easy holiday decision.
It’s heady times for Georgian tourism, and deservedly so. Yet, while the growth of international tourism is an unqualified
“Borjomi’s cool mountain air and famed mineral spring water is a pretty easy holiday decision”
positive for the Georgian economy, it is less clear how it actually translates into sustained, inclusive economic development for the country itself.
One thing is for sure, though tourism is certainly generating economic activity and bringing in badly needed foreign dollars, it’s hardly going to be some kind of economic silver bullet for Georgia’s development. The GNTA itself pegs tourism’s contributions to the economy at only 7%, and while the most recent country report from the World Tourism & Travel Council is more optimistic at 8.1% (2016), tourism
Opinion 61 is clearly not the strategic economic panacea that Georgia’s
boosters hope it to be.
Risk takers
Yet, modest numbers should not detract from the significance that tourism can have on the wider economy. While direct benefits of tourism rarely hit the doubt digits as a share of a country’s GDP or employment, indirect economic impacts are generally much more pervasive, as secondary and tertiary industries supporting and servicing the tourism industry often also benefit from tourism growth.
In addition, many of the same programmes, facilities, and infrastructure that are necessary to support international tourism can have broader economic utility. For example, efficient transport infrastructure, robust hospitality facilities,
“The positive externalities borne from tourism-related investments can often also translate into quality of life gains for the local population”
and large numbers of key foreign language speakers can enable and support other non-tourism economic activity. Companies can more effectively move goods and services on functioning roads; businesspeople can utilise vacant hotel space for meetings and conferences; a surge in English language proficiency suddenly makes outsourced call centers (relatively well-paying, labour intensive)
a viable proposition.
Perhaps more importantly, the positive externalities borne from tourism-related investments can often also translate
into quality of life gains for the local population. Sustained, high volume international tourism usually relies on regular electricity, clean water, reasonable internet penetration, clean streets, and safe communities in order to work well. These also happen to be important issues for locals as well; if those areas are addressed for tourists, they also can provide the same benefits for the resident population.
As Georgian international tourism transitions from accommodating adventure-seekers and risk takers to a high- volume flow of middle class holiday goers, the Georgian government will be hard pressed to develop the facilities that cater to growing demand without undermining Georgia’s uniqueness as a destination. In some ways, this concern can be overblown. The demolition-heavy Disneyland aesthetic favored by central planners during the Saakashvili era triggered extended controversy in Georgia at the time, but does not seem to have dented the enthusiasm of foreign travellers, which may be why the current government seems bent on its own version of mass redevelopment.
www.bne.eu