In the 1990's, my brother traveled in Georgia with a friend. They were cruising around with an old van, looking for archaeological sites and other cultural heritage. Every 10 kilometers they were stopped by police who politely asked for baksheesh. My brother’s friend hated corruption, and, more significantly, had severe difficulties controlling his temper. After this pathetic annoyance was constantly going on for days, he became angry and shouted at the policemen: “Your country is the most rotten place on earth. I will never come back to Georgia and I wi...

Members of the same nation have the same “cultural background”, which means that they share a good deal of political and social values and ideals, and they tend to believe in the same recipes to solve their problems. Such fundamental attitudes are often shaped by the historical experiences of a nation. For example, England had a kind of merchant democracy since the 14th century, when the House of Commons was founded. In the former Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, merchants had no institutionalized possibility to influence politics. Bribery and utilizin...

A recent NBER working paper by Diego Comin caught my attention. The paper explores the tourism industry in Tanzania and tries to answer a few questions. The results should be taken with a grain of salt, as the methodology appears to be less watertight than in your usual NBER working paper. The sample is rather small, the data is largely self-reported, the conclusions seem rather heroic, and the paper does not appear to be embedded in a literature. Nevertheless it is highly relevant for Georgia and her tourism industry. The paper finds that room pric...

One thing few visitors to Tbilisi fail to notice is the rich and layered architectural heritage of the city. There are medieval churches in Old Tbilisi. There are art noveau buildings in Sololaki. There is Stalinist architecture in Vake. And there are modernist experiments such as the Wedding Palace or the former Transportation Ministry Building. But at the same time this rich architectural heritage is threatened – either left to decay or destroyed or overwhelmed by new building developments. One worrying development is the proposed reconstruction of Gud...

Judging by the number of foreigners entering Georgia since 2004, tourism expanded at a breathtaking average pace of 32% a year, nearly doubling every three years. A simple extrapolation suggests that in four more years, by 2015, Georgia may be receiving more than 5mln tourists per year. Is this a realistic estimate? Would it be a blessing or a curse (in disguise)?   The growth in the number of visitors far outstripped the pace of investment in the tourism infrastructure, driving prices up and negatively affecting the quality of services. Thus, the ...

From Eurasianet: According to Ivanishvili, who made his $5.5 billion fortune in the Russian banking and metals industries, such headline-grabbing purchases were part of a calculated business strategy -- opening a world-class art museum in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, that can do battle with New York City’s Solomon R. Guggenheim museum and other prominent modern art centers. "This all started because I thought about what I can do for the country, for tourism, to rejuvenate Georgia," Ivanishvili said during an interview with EurasiaNet.org. Some “one, tw...