In the second quarter of 2018, international travelers made 1,678,436 visits to Georgia. According to the National Tourism Administration, 70.4% of these international visits were repeated trips to Georgia and 29.6% were for the first time. Accordingly, in the second quarter of 2018, there were 496,840 first time visits to Georgia.
The majority of international visits (44%) were meant for holidays, leisure, recreational purposes. Often, other recorded purposes for the visit were: visiting friends or relatives (20.6%), transit (17%), professional/economic work (7.3%), and shopping (6.3%). Only in 1.9% of the cases was another purpose identified for the visit. 53% of international visits were to the capital of Georgia, followed by Batumi (27.5%). There were considerably fewer visits recorded for the rest of the cities and sites in Georgia, such as: Mtskheta (13.3%), Marneuli (13%), Kazbegi (10.2%), Sairagh (6.1%), Telavi (4.9%), Kutaisi (4.6%), Rustavi (4.4%) and Borjomi (4%).
By analyzing the most popular places for the majority of these visits by region, we see that 53% were spent in Tbilisi, followed by the Acharan coast (28%), Mtskheta-Mtianeti (22.5%) and Kvemo Kartli (18.7%). Among the rest of the regions, the most visits were to Kakheti (10.4%), followed by Samtskhe-Javakheti (9%) and Imereti (4.8%).
