What’s new for winter 2017/18
The number of international visitors is growing in Georgia.
The country was visited by 5.8 million international visitors through 9 months, more than 19.2% comparing to the previous year. The number of tourists is increased by 28.8% and achieved 2.783 million by September 2017. Mountain resorts of Georgia where the number of visitors has increased significantly during the summer season. “In the summer of 2017, the number of visitors to all the resorts (Gudauri, Bakuriani, Svaneti, Goderdzi) have increased by 17% compared to the previous year. From this, there was a significant increase in Gudauri, where the number of visitors increased by 300%. As for Bakuriani, by 2017, the number of visitors has increased by 46% compared to 2016 and amounted to 40 265 visitors,” – Aleksandre Onoprishvili noted at press conference reviewing tourism sector of 2017 year.
At least but not last Georgia’s Tourism Strategy is Starting to Pay Off says Forbes.
Here comes up the question: What’s new for ski season 2017/18 in Georgia!?
Governments of Georgia are investing more and more in tourism infrastructure, recently was open new arrival terminal in Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport, which will increase capacity of Airport by 4 ml passengers per year. Passenger Traffic in Georgian Airports Increases by 47.92% and this was good reason for officials to start extending David the Builder Kutaisi International Airport which is hub for low-cost airlines. Number of airline companies operating in Georgia are increasing.
Starting from 2017, WizzAir and Georgian Airways (a.k.a. Airzena) are operating direct flights between Kutaisi – London (Luton) and Tbilisi – London (Gatwick). Georgian Airways and WizzAir also started new direct flights from Tbilisi and Kutaisi to Berlin, Paris and Barcelona – starting from spring 2018.
Ski area improvements
Mountain infrastructure becomes more attractive for upcoming season. Construction of the Mestia-Hatsvali chairlift, which started in the summer of 2017, will be completed by the end of the year. It is very important project for locals as lift will connect center of village and ski area. The open-top 6 seated chairlift, which will be stretched along 1 200 meters is designed by Austrian, the world’s leading manufacturer of ski lifts – Doppelmayr.
Small size of ski lifts will be installed in villages of Svaneti: Mazeri, Etseri,Ushkhvanari, Lentekhi and Ushguli, project will help to increase popularity of winter sports in communities. (Read: Georgia strives to host World Skiing and Snowboarding Championship in 2023)
First time in history of Bakuriani ski resort, Kokhta – Mitarbi ski areas will be connected to each other. Mitarbi ski area gets extra widen new ski slopes for upcoming season.
Mestia, Bakuriani and Gudauri ski resorts will have new public toilettes and ski patrol buildings. Gudauri and Bakuriani brought new special equipment to improve ski experience and resorts.
Visitors of Bakuriani can visit cinema “Didveli” and get last information about news in Bakuriani (ski lifts status, snow conditions etc).
Construction of six new hotel are underway in Goderdzi ski resort, which will increase capacity of resort by 435 beds. 80 ml. GEL was invested in these six hotels.
