Georgia: Mastercard and National Tourism Administration publish tourism trends for Q12022

Mastercard’s tourism partnership with the National Tourism Administration of Georgia aims to support businesses in the sector, help them attract new audiences and prepare for the tourist season.

Data collected from search engines, Mastercard transactions, social media and booking data measures overall visitor satisfaction in all aspects – from weather to housing and security components Lite, allowing tourism sector representatives to make better business decisions.

Mastercard announced a new tourism partnership with the Government of Georgia and the Georgian National Tourism Administration in September 2020. The partnership aims to support businesses in the sector, help them attract new audiences and prepare for the tourist season.

The main tool of cooperation for governments, private companies and small entrepreneurs, both in Georgia and abroad, is data analysis. Users use an average of 38 travel pages and start planning their trip five weeks in advance – searching for tips on social media, posting vacation photos and travel reviews, and digitizing most of their travel expenses.

This creates a huge, new database – but gathering relevant information that will not only provide information to travellers but also help guide tourism investment requires experience and extensive data analytics.

The National Tourism Administration of Georgia has enabled Mastercard Tourism Insights to use payment data to track consumer behaviour, attitudes and spending habits, enabling tourism industry representatives to make better business decisions. Data from search engines, Mastercard transactions, social media and booking data measures overall visitor satisfaction in all aspects – from the weather, including accommodation and security components.

According to the data for the first quarter of 2022, the tourist flow in Georgia has significantly increased. Accordingly, the number of international flights also increased by 270% compared to the same period of the previous year, including more than 3,000 flights.

The passenger flow has increased by 285% to more than 489,000 passengers. Of these, Turkey (21.1%) has the largest share, followed by the United Arab Emirates (13.5%) and Israel (8.3%).