JAN. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Austrian company Wucher Helikopter said it applied to the government of Georgia for permission to open a heli-skiing business near the Gudauri ski resort, 30km south of the border with Russia. Wucher Helikopter has worked in the Gudauri-Stepantsminda area since 2013. Its expansion would be a boon to Georgia’s winter tourism.
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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)
JAN. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian company Bloc Invest and Partnership Fund, a government operated business fund, will jointly build a three-star Radisson hotel in central Tbilisi. The construction of the $25m hotel will begin in the summer of 2016 and is planned to be completed in 2017. The new hotel will be built in the place of the Hotel Tori, a four-star hotel in the centre of the city. Major hotel chains have been piling into Tbilisi in the last few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
DEC. 15 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s government wants Russian tourists now blocked from travelling to Turkey for a week or two in the sun to head to Lake Issyk-Kul instead.
Media quoted Mikhail Kim, deputy director of Kyrgyzstan tourism department, as saying that he expects an influx of Russians after Russia blocked tourists from travelling to Turkey in retaliation for a Turkish warplane shooting down a Russian warplane. He also said he had written to Russia’s tourism officials to encourage them to send people to Issyk-Kul and other Kyrgyz resorts.
“It is like in the USSR, when workers from all over the Soviet Union were coming to Kyrgyzstan for vacations,” he said.
Industry insiders, though, told the Bulletin that although there has been an increase in the number of Russians holidaying in Issyk-Kul to around 60,000 per year, they doubt there would be a deluge next summer.
The head of a local tour agency who preferred to remain anonymous told the Bulletin: “For the last 1-1⁄2 years, we have seen a gradual increase of Russian tourists coming to Kyrgyzstan, and we want to have more of them coming.”
During the Soviet Union, Issyk Kul used to be regarded as a top holidaying spots. It dropped back in popularity with the onset of cheap flights to Turkey and Europe, though.
Emil Umetaliev, head of the Kyrgyz Concept tour agency, said there would not be boost in tourism.
“We have high prices, bad service and long way from Russia,” he said told local media. Russia will prioritise their own resorts like Crimea, he added.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
DEC. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian government said the development of the Gudauri ski area will cost around $150m to build, the first time that a price tag has been put on plans to give the country what officials say will be a world-class winter sports resort. Canadian mountain resort developers Ecosign and consulting firm Ernst&Young have drawn up plans to develop infrastructure at Gudauri, a ski resort around 120km north of Tbilisi. The government’s Partnership Fund is set to be one of the biggest investors in the project.
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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)
OCT. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip to Baku, Montenegro PM Milo Dukanovic signed bilateral customs deals. Anti- corruption lobbyists have queried improved relations between Azerbaijan and Montenegro. Companies linked to the Azerbaijani state have invested heavily in Montenegro’s tourism sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)
OCT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hualing Georgia, a private Chinese holding, opened its first luxury hotel in Tbilisi Sea New City, a new urban development on the shores of an artificial lake near Georgia’s capital city. Hualing has invested $150m in Tbilisi Sea New City, including $73m in the hotel. China been investing heavily in the S.Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hyatt Hotels will build a new luxury hotel in Tashkent funded partly by the Uzbek government, local media reported. Uzbekistan’s state- owned Xalq Banki has said it will provide a 100b sum (officially $38m, but quoted at $20.5m in the black market) loan for the deal, around 10% of the total cost of the project. This will be the first Hyatt hotel in Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
OCT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tourist numbers to Georgia are rising, the government said when it issued new data which showed that revenue from tourism rose to $430m in the second quarter of this year — a 6% increase from the same period in 2014. The government has been promoting Georgia heavily as a tourist destination.
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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)
SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an effort to prop up the tourism industry, Abulfas Garayev, Azerbaijan’s minister of culture and tourism forced a number of hotels to reduce prices, local media reported. Baku invested heavily in new hotels ahead of hosting the European Games earlier this year. “Artificially inflated prices were reduced after a ministerial inspection. Prices have been reduced by about 10-15%,” media quoted Mr Garayev as saying.
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(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)
SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Le Méridien, a brand of the US-based Starwood Hotels, said it will open a new hotel in Batumi, on the Georgian Black Sea coast, in 2018. Starwood chose a section of the landmark Batumi Towers to host its hotel. The Batumi Towers, was a pet project of former president Mikheil Saakashvili but has been empty since it was built in 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)