
The Quality of Living Survey 2012 of the international consultancy group Mercer ranks 222 cities in the world according to how livable they are. Tbilisi was ranked on Place 213, provoking furious reactions by many Georgians. On the internet, it is easy to find wild slanders against those who created the ranking and even against those who just referred to it, and there was even an online petition initiated against the ranking.

On Wednesday, January 27th ISET hosted Mr. Marcio Favilla Lucca de Paula, Executive Director for Operational Programmes and Institutional Relations at the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) based in Madrid, Spain. World Tourism Organization became one of the UN specialized agencies in 2013 and is the newest one among 14 specialized agencies.

In recent years, winter tourism in Kyrgyzstan develops rapidly and becomes much more popular. There are more than 6 ski resorts with chair lifts and several small bases with regular lifts in Kyrgyzstan. Besides them, there are a lot of building projects for new, modern ski resorts in various regions of Kyrgyzstan. The mountain territory of Kyrgyzstan provides comprehensive opportunities for their development.

Khachapuri index changes its value in different regions according to seasonal demand and supply peculiarities. The latter is affected by milk production cycles (low in fall and winter, high in spring and summer), Georgia’s religious calendar (e.g. the Great Lent), as well as the ups and downs in tourism.

The cost of cooking one standard portion of khachapuri fell to 3.46 GEL in September 2015, thus departing from the seasonal upward sloping trend. Compared to the previous month (August 2015) the Index declined by 0.9%, however in yearly terms (compared to September 2014, the Index gained 3.2%.