Tbilisi: Georgia’s Agency for Protected Areas held an important meeting with representatives from the tourism sector. The meeting aimed to discuss opportunities and challenges for the country’s eco-tourism sector.
This was a working meeting held by an agency of protected areas with the active participation of the National Tourism Administration of Georgia. On this occasion the participants discussed the main directions of ecotourism development and future visions.
Moreover the attendees also discussed in detail the importance of ecotourism development in terms of improving the socio-economic condition of both the local municipality and the population. As tourism brings with it great employment opportunities, ecotourism also has greater opportunities for local job seekers.
It is worth noting that there are currently 100 hiking trails and five sailing routes in the protected areas. The total length of all trails is 2213 km and more than 1000 km of well-maintained trails will be added by the end of this year as well.
The Protected Areas Agency made a detailed presentation providing the participants with comprehensive information about the diverse services existing and planned in the protected areas especially regarding the current and planned projects.
The meeting was held in a question-and-answer format. The tourism sector representatives had the opportunity to talk about their experiences and the challenges in protected areas. It was stressed during the meeting that similar sectoral meetings should continue in the future.
The Georgian Agency of Protected Areas is working to protect the country’s natural flora and fauna. The country has many protected areas which means many restrictions have been imposed in these areas to preserve the country’s natural environment especially the forest areas.
The concept of ecotourism has recently gained momentum. Global warming and the increasing earth’s temperature have been posing many challenges for agencies related to environmental protection. Sustainable development is another concept to prevent unnecessary harm to natural resources, especially forests.
