In 2019 Georgia recorded 7.7 million international visitor trips, up 7.3 percent on the year before. In 2020 it recorded 1.5 million, a fall of 80 percent.
The recovery since has been steady. By 2025 the count was back to nearly seven million visits, still below 2019, but the parts that matter most to a hotel or a driver had passed the old peak: tourist trips, the visits that include at least one night, reached a record 5.5 million, and income from international travel a record $4.69 billion. The first half of 2026 was flat, for reasons covered below. The source-market mix has also changed. The version of Georgia tourism that exists now is not the same product the 2019 numbers were measuring.
The number behind the recovery
The headline number is straightforward. The Georgian National Tourism Administration’s 2025 statistical overview shows international visitor trips climbing from 1.5 million in 2020 to 4.7 million in 2022, 6.2 million in 2023, 6.5 million in 2024 and 6.9 million in 2025, up 6.2 percent on the year. Counting every non-resident arrival, including children and frequent border-crossers, the 2025 total was 7.8 million.
For comparison, UN Tourism’s figures for 2025 show international tourist arrivals worldwide up 4 percent. Georgia’s tourist trips rose 8.4 percent, twice the global rate, to a level 9 percent above 2019.
What’s interesting is not the trajectory but the composition. The visitors behind the 2025 numbers are not the same visitors behind the 7.7 million of 2019. Three shifts matter.
Shift one: the source-market reshuffle
In 2019 the five largest source markets for Georgia, by visits, were Azerbaijan, Russia, Armenia, Turkey, and Ukraine. Four of the five were neighbours.
By 2025 the top five had reshuffled. Russia was the largest single market with 1.58 million visits, 23 percent of the total. Turkey was second with 1.25 million and Armenia third with 948,242. Israel, sixth in 2019, was fourth with 402,426 visits, up 29 percent on 2024. Azerbaijan, the largest market in 2019, was fifth, and Ukraine fell from fifth to ninth.
The growth is coming from further away. India was eighth in 2025 with 142,476 visits, up 15 percent, and China tenth with 127,895, up 44 percent. Visits from the EU and the United Kingdom reached a record 499,890, up 14 percent, with Spain up 49 percent and Italy and the United Kingdom up 39 percent each. The Gulf states together sent 145,513 visits, led by Saudi Arabia. Each of the top fifteen markets, a list that runs from Germany and Poland to Kazakhstan and China, sent more than 70,000 visits.
This matters for the hospitality sector concretely. GNTA’s 2025 figures show that 95 percent of visits from countries that do not border Georgia include at least one night, against 71 percent from its neighbours, and most of those visitors fly in. A booking from Tel Aviv or Mumbai looks different from a booking from Yerevan.
Shift two: the new road and the bigger airport
Two pieces of infrastructure are now meaningfully changing the trip itself.
The Rikoti Pass highway, 52 kilometres of four-lane road through 51 tunnels, opened in stages and has carried traffic along its full length since 30 December 2025, shortening the route over the pass by eight kilometres. We cover this in more depth in The Rikoti tunnel: how a 51-tunnel highway changed Georgia’s geography. The practical effect on a short trip: the west of the country is a shorter drive from Tbilisi than it was, which makes a split between Tbilisi and the Black Sea coast easier to fit into a few days.
Tbilisi International Airport (TBS) handled more than 5.4 million passengers in 2025, up 13.7 percent. TAV Airports, which operates it, has committed about $150 million to an expansion for more than ten million passengers a year; the project was launched in July 2026 and is due to finish as early as 2028. Georgia’s airports carried 8.5 million passengers in 2025, up 14 percent, including 1.8 million at Kutaisi and 1.2 million at Batumi, and visits by air rose 17 percent to 2.85 million. We write about the Tbilisi airport expansion separately.
Shift three: the average length-of-stay
A less-reported number is the rise in average length-of-stay. Geostat’s 2019 inbound tourism survey put the average visit at 4.1 nights; its 2025 survey put it at 5.6, up from 5.5 in 2024. Across 2025 that came to 38.6 million nights spent in Georgia by international visitors. This is the number that explains why the hotel pipeline (see The Tbilisi hotel pipeline: international flags landing by 2027) is what it is.
Part of the rise is the mix: same-day visits fell from 34 percent of visitor trips in 2019 to under 20 percent in 2025, so more of the people counted at the border now stay the night. Whatever the cause, a longer stay changes the shape of the trip. It leaves room for Tbilisi plus Kakheti, or Tbilisi plus Kazbegi, or the full Tbilisi-Kakheti-Batumi triangle on the new Rikoti road.
The 2025 record, and a pause in 2026
Revenue makes the point plainly. Income from international travel, as measured by the National Bank of Georgia, reached a record $4.69 billion in 2025, up 6 percent on the year and 43 percent above the $3.27 billion of 2019, from 11 percent fewer visits. Russia was the largest earner at $694 million, followed by the EU and the United Kingdom together at a record $660 million, then Turkey and Israel.
The first half of 2026 was flatter. GNTA’s half-year overview counts 2.27 million tourist trips, a record for the period but only 0.1 percent above 2025, while total visits fell 2.7 percent and revenue 2 percent. GNTA attributes the dip to the conflict in Iran and the wider region, and the flight cancellations that followed: visits from the Gulf fell 44 percent, from India 60 percent and from Israel 14 percent. Visits from the EU and the United Kingdom went the other way, up 23 percent to a record 249,201.
What this means for the next five years
Three takeaways for concierges and corporate travel planners working with Georgia.
Volume capacity is catching up. Tbilisi airport is being expanded for more than ten million passengers a year, and GNTA counts more than 340 new accommodation establishments, with 38,800 beds, due between 2026 and 2029. The pressure moves to the places that cannot simply add capacity, such as the well-known cellars and restaurants.
Each visit is worth more. Revenue is above 2019 while visits are not, so the average visit now brings in more. Branded hotels averaged 56.3 percent occupancy in 2025, up from 50.9 percent the year before, according to STR data in GNTA’s overview. The visitors behind the growth are the ones who fly in and stay the night, and they come from further away than they used to.
Seasonality is flattening. The fourth quarter of 2025 set a record of 1.2 million tourist trips, up 10.5 percent, and brought in $1.05 billion. The months outside the summer peak are where much of the growth now sits (see Off-season Georgia). The traditional July-August peak is no longer the only number that matters.
A closing note
The numbers will move again. The first half of 2026 showed how quickly a conflict beyond Georgia’s borders reaches its arrivals hall. What the years since 2020 show is a direction: more visitors from further away, staying longer, and spending more on each visit.
Georgia is growing into the destination it should always have been. If you’re coming and would like a car, a day to Kakheti, Kazbegi or Batumi is priced at the day rate, and longer routes such as Svaneti are quoted as multi-day bookings, in writing, in advance. Email booking@soitblack.com to talk about a trip.
Related: The Tbilisi hotel pipeline, The Rikoti tunnel, and Off-season Georgia.