THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF PANDEMICS ON THE TOURISM SECTOR AND SOLUTION WAYS
Authors: Gelashvili Ia 
Published: May 2022

The paper describes the situation in the tourism sector due to the pandemic crisis. The root causes for the fall in the tourism business are learnt and analyzed. The specific ways and recommendations are given for overcoming crisis and supporting positive trends in the sector.

Tourist Industry is the fast-growing sector in almost every country of the world. The safe environment, domestic stability, proper level of economic development, etc. are the pre-conditions for sector development.

Tourism itself supports creating new jobs, increasing income, diversifying economy, protecting the environment, approximating the cultures, etc.

Tourism has a growing tendency in Georgia, reflecting in significant increase of foreign visitors and accordingly, growth of the sector share in the revenues of a state budget. Though considering the situation in the world, meaning the global pandemics COVID 19, the problems were noticeable in Georgia too. The share of the tourism industry in country’s GDP was 11% but due to pandemics the number of visitors was dramatically decreased, followed by the closure of the country and internal strict regulations causing paralyzing of entire tourist infrastructure. The following data demonstrates the situation better, in 2019 the income from the tourism was USD 3.5 billion, while 170 thousand people were employed in the sector. The pandemic crisis caused the loss of 30 million GEL per month. In general, tourism market lost about 75.2 million jobs throughout entire world.

The tourist agencies, guest houses, catering services and freelancer guides, etc. were mostly affected by the pandemics. Reduction of the travelers’ flow by 50% left thousands of people without income. Moreover, the crisis in the tourism sector affected other fields of economy, though the most significant was decrease of currency income.

Since 2021 the positive trends are noticeable in reviving the tourism industry, for instance, according to the National Tourism Agency, in April, 2021 the number of foreign visitors was increased by 140,4 % in Georgia, while it was increased by 222,8 % in May and reached 172,333 people.

It is a fact that calculation of the losses caused by the global pandemics and recovery will take a long time for Georgian business. Currently, the most important thing is to avoid replication of the past mistakes, like introduction ungrounded, economically unjustified lockdowns. The pandemic management methods and approaches should be improved significantly and even more it has to be changed totally, the low rate of vaccination of the country has to be raised as well.

Stability of the political situation is very important, as political stability is a crucial factor for development of tourism.

Introduction of tourism supporting state policy is important, which should create strong ground for developing tour operators and other agents of tourist industry, the affords for fund raising, attracting highly qualified human resource have to be intensified and the control of efficient and targeted appliance of the investment resources has to become stricter, that will increase the quality of the touristic services.