Highlights, July 2022
Tourism recovery accelerated significantly in July-22, with revenues hitting record high monthly figure.
Total international visitors stood at 597,887 persons – up 158.9% y/y and recovering at 67.8% of 2019 level. This growth was predominantly driven by the increase in tourist arrivals recovering at 80.6% of 2019 level (up from 64.1% recovery in previous month). Recovery in same-day trips also accelerated, recovering at 44.3% of 2019 level (up from 33.3% recovery in previous month). Top country by arrivals was Russia (26.2% of total), followed by Armenia (17.4% of total) and Turkey (16.1% of total). While low, number of visitors from Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, India and Uzbekistan surpassed 2019 levels.
Tourism revenues stood at record high US$ 476.1mn in July-22, up 2.3x y/y and surpassing 2019 level by 20.4%. It should be noted that this figure also captures the impact of migrants (from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) arriving in Georgia since Russia-Ukraine war started. We estimate that c.120k visitors from these countries relocated to Georgia for longer term than regular tourists. Russia accounted for 24.4% of tourism revenues in July-22, followed by Saudi Arabia (9.3% of total), Turkey (9.2%), Belarus (7.0%), while revenues from EU was 9.2% of total. Considering strong revenues of recent months, we expect full recovery of tourism in 2022 compared to pre-pandemic levels.
