JULY 23 2017 (The Bulletin) — Looking to attract more tourists to Kazakhstan, the Kazakh government set up the Kazakh National Tourism Company. Shrugging off accusations of an old-fashioned top- down approach to tourism development, Arystanbek Mukhamediuly, the Kazakh minister for culture, said that Kazakhstan’s tourism potential was untapped.
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(News report from Issue No. 337, published on July 27 2017)
SUKHUMI/Georgia, JULY 16 2017 (The Bulletin) — Russian tourists are flocking to beach resorts in Abkhazia at a greater rate than ever before, giving the breakaway Georgian region an economic boost.
Russian couples walk along Sukhumi’s beachfront promenade and sip Abkhaz wine in newly renovated restaurants. Russian is the main language heard on the streets, shops are filled with Russian products and Russian newspapers are available in local newsagents. The currency used is the Russian rouble.
Abkhazia looks, feels and sounds like a piece of Russia and local residents are, mainly, grateful.
A tourist guide in Novy Afon, around 20km north of Sukhumi told the Bulletin : “Thank God there are the Russians. Not only did they save us when the Georgians wanted to exterminate us but now they make our economy run through tourism.”
It declared independence from Georgia in 1992, triggering a war that killed and displaced thousands of people and lead to a de facto independence. In 2008 after a war with Georgia focused on its two rebel states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia recognised them as independent. Only a handful of other countries looking to curry Russian favours followed.
Moscow subsidises Abkhazia’s state budget and has thousands of troops permanently deployed in the region.
Other than the military and the breakaway region’s administration, bankrolled by the Kremlin, there are few other jobs in Abkhazia, making Russian tourists so important.
And they are coming in their thousands, all via a border crossing with Russia to the north. Last year Avtandil Gartskiya, the tourism minister told the New York Times in an interview that he expected 1.5m tourists per year, up from less than 100,000 a decade ago.
By contrast, references to Georgia have been eradicated, or nearly.
The cuisine gives away Abkhazia’s Georgian connection. Georgia’s food icon, the Ajarian Khachapuri, a boat shaped crusty bread filled with melted cheese and egg, is a firm favourite with the Russian tourists. It’s been subjected to a rebrand, though, and is called ‘lodochka s yaizom’. In English, this simply means ‘boat with egg’.
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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)
JUNE 29 2017 (The Bulletin) — Booking.com, the Netherlands- based hotel booking website, has stopped making bookings for hotels in Nagorno-Karabakh, the region disputed between Azerbaijan and Armenia, after complaints from the Azerbaijani government, Baku- based media reported. It said that the Azerbaijani government had complained that Booking.com was breaking international law by making hotel bookings in the disputed region. Since a 1994 ceasefire, forces-backed by the Armenian government have controlled Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
JUNE 5 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakh officials were busy putting the final touches together for EXPO-2017 which Astana is hosting for three months from June 8. President Nursultan Nazarbayev opened a new Ritz-Carlton hotel in Astana, and a new airport terminal and train station were also opened. Media also reported that Kazakh police were getting lessons on how to be polite to tourists.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
MAY 31 2017 (The Bulletin) — Lonely Planet, the travel guidebook publisher, listed the Darvaza Crater in Turkmenistan as one of its top 50 natural wonders of the world. Although the guidebook market has collapsed over the past decade as the internet has become all- powerful, Lonely Planet is still a strong brand and the inclusion of the flaming Darvaza Crater in the Kyzylkum desert on its top 50 list will boost its profile.
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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)
MAY 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tourist numbers in Armenia have risen by 25% between January and April, media reported by quoting the chairperson of the economy ministry’s tourism committee, Zarmine Zeytuntsyan. She said the number of tourists from China, Iran and Russia had risen.
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(News report from Issue No. 330, published on May 28 2017)
MARCH 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev approved an action plan that is designed to boost beach tourism in the country, media reported. The plan will run to 2020 and is designed to improve infrastructure for tourists wanting beach holidays along Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea coast. A sharp fall in the price of oil has forced Azerbaijan to try to diversify its revenue streams.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
APRIL 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tbilisi Zoo will house its first tiger since a flood in 2015 destroyed the site and killed dozens of animals including the zoo’s tigers, media reported. The Siberian tiger is being donated by Riga Zoo. Other zoos have also donated animals to Tbilisi’s zoo, including London Zoo. 19 people were also killed in the flood on June 13 2015.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
TBILISI, MARCH 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgians held street parties and hung the Council of Europe’s blue and gold starred flag from their windows as they celebrated being allowed to travel to the European Union’s Schengen Zone without a visa.
Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili, together with students, journalists and state officials, was one of the first to use the new visa-free regime, taking an early morning flight from Tbilisi to Athens for an academic conference on the future of Europe, before flying on to Brussels.
He hailed the start of a new, increasingly close relationship between Georgia and the EU.
“This is an enormous achievement and a great opportunity for Georgian citizens to better acquaint with the European Union, to better learn the values that the European Union stands on,” he was quoted as saying.
Georgia harbours ambitions to join the EU at some point and, although there is no appetite among EU member states to bring Georgia into the Union, relations are growing increasingly close. Last year Georgia and the EU signed an enhanced Association Agreement that allows Georgian companies to export to the EU.
Under the new rules, Georgians are allowed to travel to the EU’s 26- country Schengen Zone without a visa for 90 days. Georgians citizens will still have to carry documents confirming the purpose of their visit to the EU, including a return air ticket, insurance, a bank statement and accommodation bookings.
Still, most people in Tbilisi were excited by the prospect of visa-free travel to the EU. Miranda, travelled to Vienna on March 29. She said that border controls could not have been easier.
“I travelled the very day next after visa liberalisation was put into force,” she said.
“It was as easy as one can imagine. I met other Georgians at the airport who were travelling without visa. They all made it safely as well.”
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
TBILISI, MARCH 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Baku and Tbilisi are among the top five destinations for Moscovites to choose to holiday in during this year’s spring break in April/May, the Vestnik Kavkaza website reported by quoting the RoomGuru.ru hotel and apartment booking website.
The data, based on bookings made for April 29 – May 10, may be anecdotal but they are more evidence of the growing popularity of both cities as tourist destinations for Russians. Both Baku and Tbilisi represent far cheaper options compared to Europe and are almost certain to guarantee sun, an important draw for Moscovites breaking out of a long cold winter.
Russians have also steered away from holidaying in Europe since sanctions were introduced in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. This, combined with a collapse in oil prices, triggered a recession which has reduced Russians’ spending power.
Maya Lomidze from the Association of Russian Tour Operators, told Vestnik Kavkaza that it was no coincidence that Baku and Tbilisi had grown in popularity.
“Azerbaijan and Georgia are actively developing inbound tourism, creating comfortable conditions for tourists and the potential for this is far from being exhausted,” she was quoted as saying.
Georgia’s tourism board has been working hard to try to entice Russians back to the country after direct flights were resumed in 2014, after being scrapped in 2008 during a war between the two neighbours.
The Georgian tourism agency said that just over 1m Russians visited Georgia in 2016, figures don’t distinguish between tourist and business trips, a 12% rise on 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)
