Economic and organizational factors of fast tourism development in Georgia (ABSTRACT)

Vaja Shubladze

Tourism infrastructure represents a complex mechanism implying not only hotels, sanatoria, holiday homes, etc., but also roads, communications, airports, stations, seaports as well as appropriate transport capacity including water transport (as Georgia is a sea country), in particular, widely-developed regional and international aviation network.

As far as we can see, it is a complex sphere, and for its development at modern level a long period and large investments are required.
When speaking about the infrastructure of tourism, we should take into consideration the fact that Georgia’s resort and recreational potential holds a special place, and the state should assume the function of maintaining the infrastructure. Therefore, it is very important to study and analyse necessary stimulating factors that are applied by different countries with the purpose of attracting investments in the sphere of tourism.
In this context the article considers the experience of some countries, the approaches (principles) that have been used for stimulating tourism development in accordance with the countries’ peculiarities and traditions. For instance, stimulating factors used by this or that country can be classified as follows:
– Government grants;
– Assistance in the financing of projects;
– Grants for allocating loans;
– Share holding;
– Deal in accordance with the scheme “Exchange of local shares for government debt”;
– Liberal policy of work permission issue;
– Unlimited regime of currency exchange (effective in Georgia nowadays);
– Abolishment of customs duties on import;
– Decrease of number of taxes;
– Government financing of public utilities cost;
– Establishment of investment assistance organizations;
Promotion of tourism is of systematic nature and to wide extent, depends on forms, mechanisms of use of economic as well as political and organizational factors, peculiarities of country’s economic development.