28 August 2021, 23:58
The authorities offer Adjara hoteliers to solve their problems with banks by their own
The hotel owners, who staged a protest at the building of the Kobuleti Mayoralty, have achieved meeting with officials and asked them to help with deferring payments on bank loans. The officials advised the borrowers to solve their problems with banks by themselves.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the entry of tourists across Georgia's land borders is allowed since June 1. Georgian authorities expect an increase in tourists' inflow. In recent years, despite lifted restrictions, Georgia has seen a record low number of tourists, Shota Alaverdashvili, the head of the Association of Tourism Businesses, has stated.
The resort season turned out to be a failure, hoteliers assert. People did not come to Batumi because of too expensive coronavirus tests – it is too expensive for a family of three to five people to do tests costing 80 laris (23 US dollars) each. Besides, due to the closure of land borders, tourists from Azerbaijan and Armenia failed to arrive in Georgia, while the number of Russian tourists arriving by air was low.
Baku would not open the land border with Georgia, while air tickets are expensive, Azerbaijani residents said. Few tourists arrive from Armenia, as people there are more concerned with job hunting than rest.
"If the government fails to solve the issue of loans with banks, in a few days a wave of protests will flood the whole Kobuleti. Eighty percent of people have lost their workplaces and are unable to pay back their bank loans," Tamaz Bakuradze, a lawyer has noted.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 28, 2021 at 01:30 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: Beslan Kmuzov Source: CK correspondent
