Domestic Tourism: 1.1 Million Visits Recorded in Q1 2019

Caption: The number of visits inside the country has increased by 11.9 percent Caption: Geostat says the majority of visitors were 31-50 years old. Intro: The main purpose of the majority of visits was visiting friends/relatives 1.1 million visits were made by the 918.400 Georgian resident visitors aged 15 years or more on the territory of the country in quarter 1, 2019.

The data was published by the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat), which noted that in comparison to quarter 1 of the previous year, the number of visits has increased by 11.9 percent.

Geostat says that in January-May 2019, 470.800 were tourist visits and 630.000 were same-day visits. If compared to the same period of 2018, same day visits amounted to 563.000 and tourist ones were 420.600 visits.

As for the age groups of the visitors in Q1 2019, 24.1% of the visitors were aged 15-30. The most significant part of the visitors – 37,6% were aged 31-50, followed by 51-70 age group – 32,3% and visitors above 71 years – 6%.

Regarding the gender of the visitors in Q1, 2019, 46.6% were male, and 53,4% were female.

Also, 28.3 percent of visitors are the residents of Tbilisi, 16.8 percent - Imereti, Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti region, 12.8%– Adjara region, while the rest of the regions are represented by the lower share in the structure.

In the first quarter of 2019, the main purpose of majority visits (55.1 percent) was visiting friends/relatives, followed by other reasons:

Visiting friends/relatives - 606.600
Shopping - 142.900
Health and Medical Care - 111.700
Visiting another house - 84.900
Holiday, Leisure, Recreation - 62.000
Business or Professional – 52.000
Religion/Pilgrimage – 16.900
Education or training – 4.100
Other - 19.700

The agency reports that the majority of the visits comes on Tbilisi -average 298.8 thousand visits per month- and Imereti region -213.6 thousand visits per month). The percentage of visits to specific regions looks as follows:

Tbilisi – 27%
Imereti – 19.3%
Adjara – 11.7%
Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti – 7.2%
Kakheti – 6.9%
Mtskheta-Mtianeti – 6.9%
Kvemo Kartli – 6.8%
Shida Kartli – 6%
Samtskhe-Javakheti – 4.9%

The majority of visitors say they are satisfied with the trips – 50.1% while 33.3% claim they are very satisfied and 14.2% neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. 1.7% are dissatisfied, and 0.5% very dissatisfied.