“Unlike the pre-pandemic period, now Georgian citizens travel to another country mainly for shopping,” Nana Kajaya, an analyst at the PMCG Research Center, says. The figure is set at 22% of the total number of trips abroad.
Average trips lasted 4 days, now the number of days has grown to 6 mainly due to the rise in airfare and tourists prefer to spend more time in another country.
At the same time, expenses in 2022 did not exceed the 2019 level - Georgian citizens spent $1.8 billion on outbound trips against $2 billion in 2019.
According to Nana Kajaya, outbound tourism saw a rapid recovery from the second quarter, in 2022 the number of tourist visits reached 71% of the pre-pandemic level.
“In the pre-pandemic period, as statistics show, Georgian citizens traveled to neighboring countries, but the situation changed after Azerbaijan had closed land borders, today Azerbaijan is excluded from international visits because of expensive flight tickets. Turkish direction has been restored by 80% compared to 2019, our citizens go there mainly for shopping,” she stresses.
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