∘ Tamar Koblianidze ∘ Tamar Tabidze ∘
FUTURE TOURISM TRENDS AFTER POST – PANDEMIC PERIOD

Annotation: This article refers to current tourism challenges that bring together experts and tourism professionals with different provisions and suggestion by UNWTO. They assume it will cause a significant diversification of products and will promote some of the trendy types considering the new status quo. UNWTO anticipates, that several trends will gain a popularity as per their content and possibility to provide social distancing and safe health standards. Article presents Georgian tourism industry outline, how it responds to the existing challenges caused by pandemic. It also gives a brief analyse of foreign experience and local givens.

Key words: Covid -19, Tourism, challenges, opportunities, UNTWO. 

Introduction 

International tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) reached 1,5 billion worldwide in recent years [ UNWTO: 2020:2], generating euro 1,7 trillion in receipts in destination, that is 3.1 % of GDP. Tourism today accounts for 10% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 7% of world exports and one in ten jobs worldwide. With a rich cultural heritage and diversity, and comprising some of the largest destinations and main source markets in the world, Europe continues to stand as the most-visited region, welcoming half of the world’s international tourist arrivals. Within Europe, the 28 countries of the European Union account for the bulk of the region’s international arrivals, some 81% of Europe’s total and 40% of the world’s figure.

Tourism industry has been playing one of the major roles in Georgian economy in recent years. So the fear of traveling and closed borders has the most drastically consequences on tourism industry and not only now, but in the near future as well. Tourism is priority for Georgian economy and each year, generating 8.1 %.  Sector was improving by means of operation performance, with the new airlines presented and couple of new directions from all three international airport of Georgia; Wizzair appearance converted the country to easily accessible destination for budget traveller and the marketing campaigns targeted to massive markets made Georgia come out to the tourism stage in many countries, it was followed by Rayan Air big deal for Georgian tourism, that was forecasting Georgian tourism growth in 2020 at least by 10 %. Another big success was Air France project, that made Georgia a demanded and quality destination in mind of many European travellers. It should be noted, that some international tourism holdings also decided to invest in the country.  One of the successful projects was “Magic Travels” international holding expansion to Georgian territory, when they decided to open their local office in Tbilisi in 2019. This is an international holding with more than 35 years’ experience and owning already 6 offices in different countries of the world. It has representative entities as well in 10 different countries apart from the offices, that facilitates a significant stream of travellers towards all its destinations. The holding is a member of different luxury organizations and MICE associations, so this project enabled Georgia to be present among luxury associations. Nowadays company is serving around 60 000 clients all over the world and has many ambitious plans for Georgian tourism.

Chart 1

  

 Source: Chart is presented by the authors based on the following data: https://gnta.ge/statistics/; https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284421152 

Tourism being at the frontline of combatting virus has been facing serious problems. Georgia tourism and hospitality industry has been having serious challenges similar to the rest of the world.

Corona Virus sustained the world movement and all tourism related units are facing serious problems actually. Coronavirus has grown into the world pandemic. Countries are being implementing extreme measures in order to combat the enemy, to adapt to the existing reality, business sector is practically paralyzed, reports and researches conducted by international organizations have different provisions about the future of the economy. Asian Development bank [EPRC: 2020:2] presented different stages stating the loss of the economy from 77$ billion to 347$ billion. While UNICEF provides recent analyses, that forecast world economy growth only by 2.5 %.

With tourism among the hardest-hit of all sectors, UNWTO [COVID 19 RELEASE:2020] has identified several possible scenarios for the months ahead. Depending on when restrictions on travel are lifted, international tourist arrivals could decline by 60-80% in 2020. This could translate into a decline in export revenues from tourism of between US$910 billion to US$1.2 trillion and place 100-120 million jobs directly at risk. The social ripple effect is also feared to be at least equally challenging for many societies the world over. Organization for Security and Co‑operation in Europe publishes a report that estimate World economy growth only by 2.4% in difference with 2.9 %, that was estimated before.

Now it is a mission of tourism professionals and movement authorities to find the best solutions to reinstate economy and to evaluate what could be the most relevant proposals to benefit as much counterparts as possible including environment, local communities, economic diversifications and decentralization, health travel and private sector involved in the industry.

 * * *

Thus, it is crucially important, that the sector adapt the feasible situation: 1) it could be the government intervention to easier business running process and give subsidies for tax payments and obtaining credits with reasonable conditions. 2) But apart from it, it is crucially important to maintain the positive trek with the world, 3) to transmit messages what could be a future for Georgia tourism and 4) what is the most important to step up with the new challenges and increasing trends.

Sector needs to:

• Survive and has a possibility of cash flow till the active tourism is reinstated;
• To have a global vision, obtain global education;
• To work as one unit, to make sure a close cooperation between different service providers as one voice;
• To take successful examples of the experienced tourism countries;
• To follow the suggestions of UNWTO and global experts and try to implement/strengthen the trends, that would become demanding post virus period.

It is estimated that, the traveller need nowadays being close with the nature, calm and relaxing travel, eco and natural products [Piranashvil M. Koblianidze T Meladze M:2018] …. What they could be seeking in Georgia are our precious mountains, pure rivers, local communities with storytelling, culinary, wine, traditions… To get emotions. So the local story telling art should reach the world audience via international marketing channels, government authorities, ambassadors, tour operators and all involved in tourism industry.

As per TrekkSoft conducted researches about tourism trends, even high-end hotels are hiring in-house specialists to provide guests with out-of-this-world personalized experiences. Guides and operators added 30,000 new experiences to TripAdvisor last year, increasing the number of available experiences, tours, and attractions by 50%. Expedia Group generated of half-a-billion dollars in bookings in full-year 2017 across its things to Do and Local Expert businesses. [Kutschera S.:2019:9:12:18]

Sustained growth in tourism has been instrumental in supporting the economic recovery, UNWTO have adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, along with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The bold agenda sets out a global framework to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change until 2030. . [Agenda 2030]

Building on the historic Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the ambitious set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 associated targets is people-centred, transformative, universal and integrated: “alliances for action: one product. one chef. one origin”.  [Connecting farmers to Chef and consumers]

Multiple rural and agro tourism conferences are held through the world to bring together ethically responsible chefs, farmers, local entrepreneurs and influencers as catalysts to bond the gap between local communities and clients.  UNWTO overall objective of the above project is to work with farmers and micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries and to connect them with top chefs, buyers, consumers and influencers alike in the food and tourism industries to generate value-added markets using native ingredients. This will be done through an innovative, inclusive and responsible business model that ensures quality, promotes the uniqueness of healthy food products, and generates inclusive impact and better income generation opportunities for farmers. Gastronomy tourism continues to be a top election for both national and international travellers. It is no more a trend but a robust tourism product.

Again by TrekkSoft Travel trends – “Travellers are opting to purchase experiences over things. Skift Research’s 2018 U.S. Affluent traveller Survey ‘found that 67% of affluent travellers would rather spend their money on activities than on a nicer hotel, up 8% from last year.’ Choosing experiences is a travel trend that is shown across all generations and demographics “(Travel Trends, Kutschera S: 9)

According to this research each year what is appreciated and demanded by potential tourists are:

• Ø A request for unique experiences
• Ø Ecological tours
• Ø Local experiences
• Ø More aventure

The same recommendations were given to Georgian tourism industry units by International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism [Dealing with Covid 19] and in case we can follow all that we can involve many vulnerable entities in the process, so that everybody can have reasonable and fast economic benefit from this process.

UNWTO named four main trends, that would be the most popular in 2020 and 2021 by its content and social correlations with the ambience [The Impact of Covid – 19 on Tourism, Wine Tourism post Covid]:

• Sustainable tourism including wine tourism, agro tourism, eco-tourism and rural tourism
• Self – drive tours
• VIP luxury private travel
• Wellness and relaxation tourism.

The last three types of business are related to possible social distancing, having least contact with other people and trying to get emotions and organize vacations with great autonomy. While the first field is more related to emotional and psychological conditions of many people, that have been sitting in quarantine for several months and overestimating all values and priorities of life.

Assuming above mentioned data and recommendations we decided to conduct a brief research pre virus situation of Georgian tourism industry, which recommended fields were existing and what could be new opportunities for our economy and well-being of our citizens.

Georgia having rich cultural and historical background in harmonious mixture of the authentic nature and gastronomic experiences, having significantly important number of populations in rural areas has a rich potential to develop all above mentioned trendy directions.

Agritourist is a growing international trend to reconnect with what matters in life and is linked to activities and attractions on a working farm. This includes many activities, for example: milking cows, shearing wool, picking fruit, harvesting crops, using agricultural implements, wine making, tasting cheese and the list goes on, all these experiences and activities offers farmers the opportunity to earn additional revenue with existing resources. Different countries are can share best practices to Georgia like Australia or Sauth Africa.

The major driven field is Sustainable tourism with the main livestream - wine tourism. It could foster the growth of Georgian tourism industry and in general Georgian economy as the sector is well presented and includes complex activities and business directions.

Wine tourism involves close cooperation between of the two sectors - tourism and viticulture. It is a part of agro-tourism and a collateral activity to wine industry which lead to regional development. Georgia is a Cradle of Wine with great historical past and rich cultural traditions.  GNTA of Georgia since 2012 has started project “Wine Route” which is opportunity for rural development. From that time till 2020 around 211 members have been incorporated, 122 of them from Kakheti region, that is considered as the core region of wine making and wine tourism in Georgia [Wine Routes].

Wine, agro and rural tourism are considered through the world as a very strong tool to develop agriculture, national wine making and rural traditions. Being cultivating wine for more than 8000 years Georgia is a country, it has all the possibility to become top listed tourism destinations in this assert.

It should be noted, that this is a complex structure unifying different segments like Wine Chateau’s, Wine hotels, Wine resorts and wine museums, that are quite well implemented in Georgia. The sector has had a steady growth in recent years bringing together wine producing, exporting and tourist visits in the wineries with diverse activities, like wine tasting, grape harvest, culinary masterclasses, overnight in Chateaus and some of them are even converted to wellness resorts and offer a great deal of therapies and well-being activities.

An organization “winesgeorgia” unifies around 210 wine makers to facilitate their contact with the rest of the world and gives a vast information about their production. As per our research conducted about wineries:

ü 58 % of the economic units are relatively young, being in sector for around 5 years;

ü 89 % of them are having small scale wine cellars;

ü 93 % of them are in rural areas;

ü 78 % of them are incorporated in project “Wine route”;

ü 45% of them are generating current or temporary jobs for around 20 employees;

ü 57 % of them are producing “Kvevri” wine.

When it comes to complex infrastructure new chateaus and wine resorts are being opened and expanded each year.  Some of the historical venues include “Schuchmann Wines Chateau & Spa”, “Hotel Chateau Mosmieri”, “Babaneuris Marani” some new venues are “Akhasheni Wine Resort”, “Chateau Zegaani”, “Resort Vazisubani Estate”, all it shows an increasing demand and interest of the segment. This complex is having different activities and can be included in wine tourism listing as well wellness resorts.

Georgia can take very good experience in this field from Germany, where rural, agro and resort complex are having history of several decades and are creating very good and competitive products.  “Urlaub am Bauernhof” -www.landtourismus.de, this site offers around 1950 lists in Germany. They have very well developed farmhouses and farm stays. The concept behind agritourist (or farm stays, or guest ranches, or farmhouse B&Bs, or rural tourism, or whatever you want to call it) is simple: you spend the night as a guest on a working farm. From there, though, the concept flies off in many directions. You can breathe a fresh air, you eat eco and natural products, you can participate yourself in farm operations, assist diverse masterclasses, help the farmers in everyday duties, these experiences can be implemented in Georgian small entities as now majority of the agritourist foundations are targeted to short visits, only few of them are offering overnight and they have relatively less interaction. Mostly it is observation what and how is done, instead of participating in farm running operations. The same good practices we can have from France, Israel, USA, Italy, that is one of the leaders in this regard, and even very useful tips from post-Soviet countries like Lithuania and Belarus.

Based on the information of TrekkSoft, Travel Trends wellness travel was doubled on booking.com in recent years and walking tours, hiking sustainable trips had a significant increase.

Wellness and Resort hotels are all over Georgia offering diverse type of accommodation from 5* international brand hotel to local 3* modest hotels and even home stays. They are different by the location and content varied from Black Sea coastal hotels (“Paragraph Resort & Spa Shekvetili, Autograph Collection”, “Georgia Palace and Spa”,” Castello Mare Hotel and Wellness Resort”), followed by many another resorts like Tskaltubo, Bakhmaro, Borjomi (“Borjomi Likani”, “Borjomi Palace”, “Crown Plaza”), Bakuriani, different resort hotels in Kakheti region like “Royal Batoni”, “Kvareli Eden”, “Kvareli Kale Resort”, “Lopota Lake Resort” …. The services and treatments offered are varied and mostly meets the demands of the travellers. It should be noted, that this type of tourism is generating quite a high amount of financial resources and average vacation in these resorts varies from 500 to 1500 USD per person.

It is important to consider, that many of the venues were converted to quarantine zones to prevent corona virus expansion in Georgia and isolate thousands of citizens arriving from different worldwide destinations. So these venues have adopted already international sanitary standards and their employees have got all necessary skills how to maintain the social isolation and give a quality service to the guests. These experiences would be vital, for post - corona period, so that sector has fast growing possibility and attract international audience. It is also assumed, that around 2 million GEL that was spent by Georgia citizens for their holidays abroad could be turned to domestic tourism, as majority of our citizens will try to avoid travelling abroad and the main activity will be relaxing vacations and wellness in Georgia resort hotels. Together with wellness possibilities we should highlight also Medical tourism potential of the country with its natural potential, favourable pricing policy and easy procedures to enter country and spend several months here. However, Medical tourism will be facing challenges for its steady development including:

• Only small part of the resorts is well rehabilitated from Soviet period and do not meet international standards;
• Lack of necessary equipment to offers diverse treatment procedures;
• Hospital sector does not have commercial interest in medical tourism to encourage it and invest in the field.

When it comes to VIP and Luxury tours, Georgia has quite limited possibility, but still can meet the demand for short stay travellers (3-5 nights) with its collection hotels (“Radisson Tsinandali Collection”), local modern style brands like “Stamba hotel”, “Rooms hotels” …. Private helicopter rides (“Vanilla Sky” and “Aviator Helicopter”), premium restaurants like “Barbarestan”, “Ethnography”, “Republic”. Premium wineries like “Guramishvili Winery” and “Chateau Mukhrani” are more than happy to welcome guests. Our guests can enjoy private visits of museum collections, Opera House, enamel workshop, “Sky Travel Air Balloon” and some other activities.

For self-drive tours, one of the handicap is the language as majority of elder people in the rural areas do not speak English, however the Georgian hospitality enables the local people to understand the demands and preferences of the solo travellers and even make friends with them. Road conditions are quite good, and majority of the roads are traced in Google maps and guests can also move by GPS. This sector also is helping to develop rural and sustainable tourism, as this kind of traveller mostly are looking for the close contact with local communities.

Proving the potential hereby, we present GNTA statistics the activity types for 2019 travellers were the following for incoming tourism:

Chart 2

 

Source: https://gnta.ge/statistics/

 

We also made research of other Georgian tourist companies to see (from their web-sites and social media sources) how they can meet with the existing and increasing demand, whether all those trendy types are presented in their production and if there’s a product diversity.

We studied products of 37 Georgian tourism companies. All of them are offering completely or partially sustainable tourism activities, majority of them have only wine and culinary tours, but some even propose agro and rural tourism products.

30 leading Companies are offering at least one product for wine tour, and 15 of them are offering sustainable tours including the whole range as rural, agro, eco-tourism together with wine and culinary experiences; 15 companies are offering self-drive tours proposals; Only 5 companies are offering VIP and luxury travel experiences; As for Wellness and relaxing activities 14 companies are having information about the venues. If we assume, that these are the leading companies with the most diverse offers, we can accept, that the rest 500 companies, that are working on incoming sector would have as maximum as one offer among the four trendy. 

Small analyses were conducted based on the data of “Magic Roads Georgia” incoming tour operator about the correlation of demands for the above mentioned trendy directions:

Chart 3

 

Source: “Magic Roads Georgia LLC” 

To conclude our estimation, being confined in mandatory isolation does different things to different people, but we all surf the same emotions of reflecting, reassessing and anticipating life on the other side. The density of heritage sites, wine cellars, natural resources, cultural attractions and the geographic location of the region provides significant potential for the development, but fulfilment of our dreams related to travel and to get back Georgia to its’ steady growth largely depends on the improvement of the epidemic situation in the country and in the whole world, also how we can cope with sanitary standards and secure safe travelling. Because Georgia has a huge national potential with all attractive stories, traditions, pure nature and untouched rural lifestyle, we can open to the whole all diverse possibilities without building from zero privileged directions and we can be one step forward in comparison with other countries. The judgment is proved by Forbes, that names Georgia among the 7 most potential destinations to become major tourism destination [Ranahan J :2020].

For the entire process of sustainable development and recovery should be involved an extensive consultation process and in-depth dialogue with a wide range of organizations and individuals from national and local governments, tour operators, investors, protected areas and heritage site managers, hotel owners, tourism educators, and citizens representing all walks of life, taken into consideration International experiences and best practices.

Georgian government announced [Tourism revival plan:2020] concession projects already at the beginning of March, but on May 7 they presented tourism stimulus project, providing a three stage plan and plenty of concession decisions among them to exempt tourism industry from property tax; to report withholding tax payment till the end of the year; to guarantee and cautioner loan interest for around 2000 hotels (having between 4 and 50 rooms). According to this plan, hotels will be open on June 15 for domestic tourism and Georgia will open borders for international travellers from July 1. Domestic tourism can benefit a lot this year to the devastated Georgian economy. One of the initiatives was also founding Georgian tourism alliance, ministering to combat crisis with joint force and steady recovery of the field. It will be targeted also to the sector development.

To conclude briefly, if we can implement a Georgia tourism strategy, that was projected several years ago and strives to achieve eight strategic objectives: 1) respect, enhance, and protect Georgia’s natural and cultural heritage, 2) create unique and authentic visitor experiences centred on those natural and cultural assets, 3) enhance competitiveness, through delivery of world-class visitor services, 4) attract higher spending markets, through increased and more effective marketing and promotion, 5) expand and enhance Georgia’s ability to collect and analyse tourism data and measure industry performance, 6) expand public and private sector investment in the tourism sector, 7) enhance the business environment, to facilitate increased foreign and domestic investment, and 8) build partnerships between government, industry, non-governmental organizations, and communities that will be needed to achieve all of the above we can increase visitor spending, several opportunities can be exploited – including the development of more diversified and high-quality tourism products, enhancing visitor experiences and improving service quality – ultimately creating a world-class tourism destination that stimulates international demand beyond Georgia’s neighbouring countries, Georgia could become one of the top listed world tourism destinations by its quality and product diversity very fast. 

Conclusions 

Tourism industry has been playing one of the major roles in world economy, as well for Georgia in recent years. Corona virus hit significantly the sector. The world is facing an unprecedented global health, social and economic emergency due to the COVID- 19 pandemic.  It is crucially important, that the sector adapt the feasible situation. Current tourism challenges that bring together experts and tourism professionals offer different provisions together with UNWTO. They assume it will cause a significant diversification of products and will promote some of the trendy types considering the new status quo. several trends will gain a popularity as per their content and possibility to provide social distancing and safe health standards.

We saw, that all above mentioned privileged anticipated activities have a rich potential in Georgia.

Georgia can offer diverse experience and emotions including:

• Cultural: visiting historical, architectural and religious sites;
• Wine: visiting wine-related sites including wineries, family-run wine cellars and related cultural attractions; rural farms and boutique Chateaus;
• Adventure: visiting national parks and Great Caucasus mountains
• Holiday, recreation, and leisure: weekends tour.

The government intervention by means of concession offers, taxation subsidies and helping the sector to work out the necessary guidelines is also very important to overcome challenges and accelerate economic development of Georgia. 

References 

1. International Tourism highlights, UNWTO, https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284421152 –Last visited on June 5
2. Economic Impact of Covid – 19: The World and Georgia; (EPRC) Economic Policy Research Centre,  http://eprc.ge/uploads/brosh/COVID__fin-eng-02.pdf, Page 2,  – Last visited on May 20.
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