In the recent years, number of tourists in Georgia is tend to increase. In 2010-2015, incomes generated from tourism in Georgia increased by 25,6% in average.
According to the data provided by the National Bank of Georgia, in 2016, incomes generated from tourism in Georgia increased by 11,9% and made 15,1% of GDP. As to the nine-month period of 2017, the increase reached 29%.
In Croatia, the casual relationship between incomes generated from tourism and GDP is quite high and in 2016 it made 18,1%.
In Montenegro, where tourism is one of the main sources of incomes for the economy, tourism contribution to GDP in 2016 was 23,9%. The trend of increase of tourism-generated income was registered also in Iceland, where in 2016 and 2016, contribution of tourism to GDP was accordingly 12,7% and 10,6%.
In EU member states, relationship between incomes generated from tourism and GDP is relatively low. Although the income-generation from tourism shows the trend to increase, alongside with development of the economy, its share in GDP decreases. For instance, among countries, which are popular with tourists, highest contribution of tourism to GDP – 33% – was registered on Cyprus in 2000. However, this value significantly decreased in the later period and in 2016 tourism contributed to GDP only 13,1%. Similar to Cyprus, tourism contribution to GDP was high in Malta in 2000 – 29% and in 2016 this value reduced to 15,5%. In the recent years, in Greece, relationship between incomes generated from tourism and GDP increased and 8,6% and Czech Republic, this value was equal to 6,9%.
Based on the information provided by the National Bank of Georgia, taking into consideration current increase speed, it is possible that in 2017, in Georgia, like in Croatia, relationship between GDP and incomes generated from tourism will approach 18%.
“Experience of other countries shows that high rate of increase of tourism-generated incomes is expected to be retained during next years. If we assume that the relationship between tourism-generated incomes and GDP in Georgia will increase to 25% by 2020, like in Montenegro, this means that tourist-generated incomes should increase by average of 20% during next three years; and if we assume that like on Cyprus, this relation will go up to 35% by 2022, this means average annual increase of tourist-generated incomes by 23% during next 5 years,” – state NBG representatives.
