Georgia Beyond Arrivals : Emerging Opportunities for Georgian Firms in Tourism Value Chains
Georgia’s current tourism offering is oriented toward low-spending neighboring markets and,although there is growth in high-spend global markets, the share is still very small. The majority of international visitor trips are from Georgia’s neighbor...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/264181575569238865/Georgia-Beyond-Arrivals-Emerging-Opportunities-for-Georgian-Firms-in-Tourism-Value-Chains http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33166 |
| Summary: | Georgia’s current tourism offering is
oriented toward low-spending neighboring markets
and,although there is growth in high-spend global markets,
the share is still very small. The majority of international
visitor trips are from Georgia’s neighboring
countries—Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey. This
strong regional footprint is partly attributable to
Georgia’s reputation during Soviet times as a recreational
destination. Proximity, low prices, familiarity and language
have contributed to this strong position. However, of
Georgia’s top 15 source markets, tourists from Azerbaijan,
Armenia and Turkey have the lowest average total trip
expenditure and make the shortest trips. Although Georgia
has seen very strong growth from China and India, arrivals
to Georgia from the top global tourism source markets1 in
2018 represented only 7.3 percent of arrivals to the
country. Georgia’s government is targeting high-growth,
high-spend source markets. In 2015, the Government of
Georgia (GoG) launched “Georgia Tourism 2025”; a 10-year
vision and strategic plan for increasing the value and
importance of tourism for the benefit of the country’s
economy and ultimately its citizens. The plan—developed with
support from the World Bank Group—included infrastructure
development, country promotion, service quality improvement
and tourism product diversification. Building on this plan,
in 2018, GoG developed a marketing, branding and promotional
strategy to communicate Georgia’s brand positioning, visual
and verbal identity guidelines, and promotional objectives
and target high growth, high-spend source markets. As
Georgia’s source markets evolve, new GVC structures
necessary to serve those markets will alsoemerge. GoG has
identified 26 key source markets based on accessibility,
economic factors, culturalrelations, and other factors such
as the size of diaspora, historical ties and language
barriers. A shift towards these new markets will also
correspond to changes in consumer behavioral trends and
tastes. This, coupled with global industry trends will see
new value chain structures emerge, emphasizing activities
with differing competitive forces, and presenting differing
opportunities to create and retain value. Georgian firms may
need support to respond to changes in emerging tourism GVCs
and compete for higher-value-added activities. The report
asks and answers two questions: i) How are emerging trends
changing the structure of Tourism GVCs and how can Georgian
firms benefit from these changes? ii) What policy reforms,
capital investment or skills development is needed to
increase Georgia’s value chain competitiveness in each of
these key tourism offerings? |
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