More people are visiting Georgia, exploring the country’s beauty and enjoying its touristic potential.

Today the Ministry of Internal Affairs released data that showed 323,159 visitors came to Georgia in January 2016. This was 4.4 percent more compared to the same month of 2015.

The type of visitors to Georgia last month were:

• 116,369 tourists (36 percent of the total number of monthly visitors) – a 4.3 percent increase year-on-year (y/y).
• 48,466 transit visitors (15 percent of the total number of monthly visitors) – a 16 percent increase y/y.
• 158,324 ‘other’ visitors (49 percent of the total number of monthly visitors) – a 13 percent increase y/y.

In January 2016 the most visitors came from Armenia (12.4 percent decrease y/y) followed by Turkey (5.6 percent decrease), Azerbaijan (16 percent increase) Russia (10.2 percent increase) and Ukraine (8.6 percent increase).

A positive trend was retained regarding visitors from European Union (EU) countries. In January 2016 the most EU visitors came from France (29 percent), Italy (26 percent), United Kingdom (16 percent), Poland (15 percent) and Germany (14 percent).

From central Asian countries, the majority of guests came from Kazakhstan (15 percent), while the leaders among Eastern European countries were Belarus (21 percent) and from the Near East Israeli took first position (14 percent).

Ministry figures revealed visitor numbers in the first month of this year were up 706 percent from the United Arab Emirates.

Additionally the number of visitors from the United States increased seven percent.

Source:agneda.ge