Tbilisi hotels filled 43% of their rooms in the first quarter at $89 a night — the low-season number worth knowing

Drawing on a Galt & Taggart report and published in April 2026, Tbilisi hotels recorded 43% occupancy in the first quarter of 2026, up from 39% in the same quarter of 2025. The average daily rate rose to $89 from $83. The improvement was attributed to strong arrivals from the European Union and a solid start to the year in January and February.

January to March is the weakest stretch of the Georgian year outside the ski resorts, and a market that fills fewer than half its rooms in that window is carrying its fixed costs on the rest of the calendar. For an investor, the peak-season figure describes the upside and the first-quarter figure describes the floor. A projection built only on August tells you what a building can earn on its best days; a projection that includes a 43% quarter tells you whether it survives its worst ones.

Batumi's short-let market, on separate trailing-twelve-month data updated in July 2026, averaged 33.3% occupancy at $58 a night across roughly 3,900 listings. Tbilisi hotels in their weakest quarter ran ahead of that on both measures. The two are not like for like — hotels against private short lets, one quarter against a full year, capital city against seasonal resort — but the comparison makes a point worth holding onto: a year-round city with business and transit demand behaves differently from a coast with a three-month summer.

Serviced apartments and hotel-room investments in Georgia are usually sold with a projected return attached. The questions that test it are simple and rarely volunteered: what occupancy is the projection based on, and is it an annual average or a peak figure; what is the assumed nightly rate, and how does it sit against the $89 city average in a weak quarter; who pays for refurbishment, and out of which line; and what happens to the guaranteed return after the guarantee period ends. A projection that cannot survive a 43% quarter should be treated as marketing rather than as a forecast.