Georgian government postpones hosting tourists from Israel
By Khatia Bzhalava
Thursday, June 11
In May, The Prime Minister of Georgia announced that the negotiations were being conducted with a couple of countries in terms of creating a safe corridor for tourism, and one of the first countries Georgia was supposed to receive the tourists from was believed to be Israel. As the PM stated, `the agreement was reached and signed,’ however, deterioration of the epidemiological situation in Israel hinders the implementation of the bilateral tourism between Georgia and Israel.
In May, the epidemiological situation in Israel significantly improved, however in the last two weeks the cases of coronavirus infection have increased. 1197 new cases have been detected since June 1st and according to the recent data(June 10th), there are a total of 18 268 cases and 299 deaths.
On June 9th, the representatives of relevant authorities held a meeting with the PM, Gakharia, where the criteria for renewing international tourism were discussed. According to the press service of the government’s administration “even though the agreement was reached with Israel as one of the prioritised countries, due to worsening its epidemiological situation, the opportunity of opening tourism instantaneously has been delayed.”
As the PM said, the colleagues from the countries where the condition has deteriorated infection-wise, have asked the Georgian government to wait for them for a while regarding the interests of Georgia in terms of safety.
“It is the well-being of Georgia’s citizens that matters the most and under no circumstances will the government pose a risk to it by receiving tourists from countries that have severe epidemiological situations,” Gakharia noted.
The government of Georgia plans to open inner tourism from June 15th and internationally from July 1st. According to several MPs, with the current global pandemic, inner tourism is considerably prioritised.
