Lack of snow undermining tourism season

In recent times, the tourism industry has the become number one priority for Georgia’s economy. Just a couple of days ago, president Saakashvili opened the winter season in Svaneti promising to invest up to GEL 600 mln in the local infrastructure. We will yield billions out of it, promised Saakashvili. Today, in mid-January, there is little snow in either of the winter resorts in Georgia Bakuriani, Gudauri and Svaneti. In winter 2010, according to the official statistics, Georgia hosted around 60 000 tourists in Gudauri and Bakuriani. The tourism department expected up to 100 000 tourists in winter 2011. Unfortunately, the situation is not encouraging, there is little snow in these places and weather forecasts state that no snow should be expected until the end of the month.

Some calculations estimated that tourists in Georgia spend over USD 300 daily. No snow means no tourists, so let us pray that it starts snowing in Georgia.