Tourists differ from ordinary visitors
By Messenger Staff
Thursday, February 28
During Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration, all the foreigners crossing the border to Georgia were calculated as tourists. The former administration of the country promoted large figures. However, there was no distinct differentiation between a real tourist and ordinary visitor, businessman or truck driver.
There is no doubt that tourism is a very attractive field of business in Georgia. However, there should be a distinct characteristic “who is who.” Tourist is a person who enters a foreign country, lives in the hotel, spends several days there, without receiving any economic profit though they spend money on accommodation, meals, entertainment and sightseeing.
When a foreign citizen enters Georgia for business of course he/she is not a tourist. Georgia is a transit territory for drivers transporting goods in and out of the country between Turkey and Azerbaijan, spending nights in the cabins of the truck, having meals on board the car, mostly trying not to buy petrol in Georgia as it is cheaper in Azerbaijan. Therefore, these people are not tourists.
In 2012, around 4.4 million foreigners entered Georgia but it is not clear who is the real tourist out of this amount and who is not.