In 2019 Georgia welcomed 9.4 million international travellers, the highest figure the country had ever recorded. In 2020 it took 1.4 million, the lowest figure since 2008. Most concierges who watched both numbers wrote the destination off for the rest of the decade. The recovery would take, they said, until 2025 at the earliest, and the Russian-Ukrainian situation made the long road longer.
The recovery happened faster than the forecasts. By 2024 the country was past seven million arrivals, by 2025 closer to eight, and by the first quarter of 2026 the trajectory pointed at a new full-year record. The source-market mix had 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. Georgian National Tourism Administration (gnta.ge) data shows international visitor arrivals climbed from 1.4 million in 2020 to 4.7 million in 2022, 7.0 million in 2023, and 7.4 million in 2024. The 2025 figure is expected to clear eight million when finalised. For comparison: Croatia received 21 million in 2024, Slovenia 6 million, and Armenia 2.5 million. Georgia sits between Slovenia and Croatia, well above Armenia, and is one of the fastest-growing destinations in the wider region by percentage gain.
What’s interesting is not the trajectory but the composition. The drivers behind the eight million coming in 2025 are not the same drivers behind the 9.4 million in 2019. Three shifts matter.
Shift one: the source-market reshuffle
In 2019 the top five source markets for Georgia were Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The top three were the ones that gave Georgia its volume; the next two its borders.
In 2024 the top five had reshuffled. Russia remained the largest single market, but its share of total arrivals fell from 31 percent in 2019 to around 25 percent by late 2024, and the rate at which new Russian arrivals were registering as long-stay residents (rather than tourists) shifted the economic effect. Turkey moved into second. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Israel rounded out the top five. Ukraine, predictably, dropped sharply.
Three new entrants are doing the work that matters for the next decade. The Gulf states — particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE — moved into the top ten for the first time, with year-over-year growth above 40 percent. India also entered the top ten, driven by wedding tourism, leisure groups, and the new direct flights operated from Tbilisi. Israel, which had a smaller historical position, stepped into a much larger one as flight connections strengthened and the Mediterranean alternatives became harder to recommend.
This matters for the hospitality sector concretely. The Gulf and Indian travellers stay longer, spend more on premium services, and use private transport more than the regional source markets they’re partly replacing. A booking from Tel Aviv or Mumbai looks different from a booking from Yerevan; the difference is what fills five-star hotels and what fills mid-range ones.
Shift two: the new road and the new airport
Two pieces of infrastructure are now meaningfully changing the trip itself.
The Rikoti Pass tunnel, which opened in phases through 2024-2025, cut driving time between Tbilisi and Kutaisi by ninety minutes and made same-day Tbilisi-to-Black-Sea trips practical for the first time. We cover this in more depth in The Rikoti tunnel: how a 51-tunnel highway changed Georgia’s geography. The practical effect on visitor pattern: a guest who would have committed to two nights in Tbilisi can now commit to one in Tbilisi and one in Batumi without losing a day to the drive.
The Tbilisi International Airport (TBS) expansion is on track for completion by 2027. The new terminal will more than double passenger capacity from the current four million to roughly ten million annually. The Kutaisi airport, which served as the low-cost-carrier base for Wizz Air and others, continues to grow. Together the two airports give Georgia capacity for an arrivals number well above the 2019 peak. We write about this expansion separately in Tbilisi International Airport: the expansion that should finish 2027.
Shift three: the average length-of-stay
A less-reported number is the rise in average length-of-stay. In 2019 the average international visitor spent 5.6 nights in Georgia. By 2024 that figure had climbed to 6.4 nights. A 14 percent increase in nights per visitor, multiplied across seven million arrivals, is roughly five million additional bed-nights of demand on the hospitality sector. This is the number that explains why the hotel pipeline (see The Tbilisi hotel pipeline: international flags landing by 2027) is what it is.
The reasons behind the longer stay are partly the source-market shift (Gulf, Indian, and Israeli guests stay longer on average) and partly the geographic broadening of the trip. Visitors who used to do Tbilisi only now do Tbilisi plus Kakheti, or Tbilisi plus Kazbegi, or the full Tbilisi-Kakheti-Batumi triangle that the Rikoti tunnel made possible.
What this means for the next five years
Three takeaways for concierges and corporate travel planners working with Georgia.
Volume capacity is no longer the bottleneck. With ten million annual passenger capacity in flight and a hotel pipeline that adds roughly 4,000 keys over 2025-2027, Georgia is the destination that can take more. The constraint on the experience now is car capacity, guide capacity, and the few cellars and restaurants where bookings consistently exceed inventory. That last constraint is the one we work on directly.
The premium segment is the fastest-growing. The mid-market wallets that built the 2010s Georgia tourism story are still there, but the segment with the steepest growth in the past three years is the premium one. Hotels with rates above EUR 250 per night fill earlier and more reliably than they did pre-pandemic. The Gulf, Indian, Israeli, and EU corporate visitor profiles are the ones driving this.
Seasonality is flattening. Georgia’s traditional shoulder months (April-May and September-October) are now packed. Winter Tbilisi is in active growth (see Off-season Georgia). The traditional July-August peak is no longer the only number that matters.
A closing note from the road
We watched the 2020 collapse from behind the wheel. We watched the 2022 cautious return. We watched 2023 turn into a year where every concierge call we took ended with “and we’ll bring more next year.” That conversation has now happened for three years running.
Georgia is growing into the destination it should always have been. If you’re coming, we’ll drive you. We work with concierges, corporate travel teams, and direct guests across the Tbilisi-Kakheti-Kazbegi-Batumi-Svaneti map. Email bookings@soitblack.com to talk about a trip.
Related: The Tbilisi hotel pipeline, The Rikoti tunnel, Off-season Georgia, and Why Gulf and Indian travellers are choosing Georgia.