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Friday,
August 24-September 7,
2007, #162 (1429)
"Of course
I took a vacation this summer, but not in Batumi. Prices are too high
there, it's ridiculous for Georgia. May as well go abroad and lounge
about in high-class hotels." "I was in
Batumi with my family for two weeks. At the beginning everything seemed
nice and affordable, but when we counted up all the money we spent we
decided that next year we could take a long, luxurious vacation abroad." "I'm going
to Kobuleti tomorrow; I've heard that Batumi is much more expensive.
Some foreigners say that it's a nice place-well, it may be cheap for
them, but seven lari for a bottle of Coke is too much for me." "Prices are
up, yes, but mostly just for Batumi hotels. I visited my regular 'host
family' in Kobuleti, and they were only charging seven lari, two more
than last year." "Yeah, prices
are up, and partly because of more foreign tourists from Armenia and
elsewhere. I guess that's not a bad thing for business and locals. It
just hits us, the domestic tourists." "Prices really
have gone up in Batumi, and pretty much everywhere popular in Georgia.
I prefer to spend my free time in the mountains. It's cheaper, healthier
and more interesting." "I have small
children and I took them to our village. Yes, I've heard that prices
are extremely high in the seaside towns. I don't know how anyone manages
to vacation there." "I'm too old
for Batumi, or Kobuleti, or anywhere on the seaside. My grandchildren
went, though, and they said they needed more money. But they're young,
so it's obvious they'd spend lots of money on nothing. The clever man
would economize and need little funds for a vacation." "I think it
would have been better to use the money I spent in Batumi to go to Turkey,
or Bulgaria, or somewhere else. I won't go to the Georgian seaside next
year if prices are this high again, that's for sure." |
Prices in Batumi, Georgia's favorite resort town, have shot up since
last summer. Could you afford to take a vacation this year?