Georgians travel at home constantly — but barely spend on a bed

The National Statistics Office's survey, published on 24 August, counted a monthly average of about 1.37 million resident travellers aged 15 and over in the second quarter of 2026, making roughly 1.70 million visits a month. The number of travellers was flat year on year and visits were up 1.1%. Only about 683,000 of those monthly visits involved an overnight stay, 1.3% fewer than a year earlier; the rest were same-day trips. Imereti and Tbilisi were the most visited regions, each receiving about 377,000 visits a month.

Residents spent an average of GEL 300.7 million a month on these trips, 7.2% more than a year earlier, or GEL 177 per visit. But the breakdown is striking: shopping took 34.1%, transport 21.5% and food and drink 20.4%, while accommodation accounted for just 2.3% — about GEL 4 per visit — and leisure, cultural and sporting activities only 0.6%. That fits the purposes people gave: 52.6% of visits were to see friends or relatives, 13.4% were for shopping, 9.3% were to a second home or cottage, and only 10.6% were described as holidays or leisure.

Domestic travel is large and steady, and it clearly supports shops, restaurants and transport. But most of it does not pay for a room. For a guesthouse, hotel or experience host outside the main cities, the survey suggests the paying guest is still overwhelmingly the foreign visitor, with residents a thin top-up. Those trying to win local custom will be competing mainly for the roughly one in ten trips that are genuine holidays. Satisfaction was high, which helps: 87.6% of domestic visits were rated satisfied or very satisfied.