Travel and Tourism is one of the largest and fastest-growing service industries globally. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), the industry’s direct contribution to World GDP in 2012 was US$ 2.1 trillion (2012 prices) and it supported 101 million jobs.

The main goal of this project was to develop a neutral platform for regular discussion of Georgian government policies, donor-financed programs to promote inclusive growth A total of seven debates and thee project presentations were hosted at ISET as part of this project on topics ranging from farmer cooperation to family farming, to tourism, to vocational training systems, to SME development, to access to energy.

On Monday evening I am taking the express train from Tbilisi to Samtredia with my wife and two kids (business class, 120GEL). We plan to stay overnight in a little family hotel (40GEL), and at 6.30 am we’ll board the Wizz Air flight to Katowice, Poland, at the cost of €40 a person and €35 per suitcase (one way).

As Stephen Dowling put it in his BBC News article a few years ago, “when it comes to crossing the road, there's no such thing as an international standard. Every country does it differently.” How people drive and cross the road, according to Dowling, is a matter of a country’s cultural values. Is it really?

There is no arguing that during the ten years since the Rose Revolution, the Georgian economy registered an impressive growth performance, averaging 6.6% per annum.