Authorities happy with tourism development in the country

As the chairman of the Tourism and Resorts department Maia Sidamonidze described 2010 as quite successful from a tourism perspective. For the first 8 months of 2010, Georgia was entered by almost 1.3 mln foreigners, which is 38% higher than the same period in 2009. Adjara alone was visited by more than 800 000 foreigners while many tourists visited the mountainous areas of Georgia. The growth of incoming tourists is mostly attributed to an improvement of infrastructure and wide scale promotion in international markets as well as chartered flights and multiple festivals, concerts and shows. In 2011, the trend will hopefully continue as certain steps will be taken to promote domestic tourism as well, improving services and further developing the country's infrastructure.