Ministry of Economic Development of Georgia > News

A meeting between the General Secretary of World Tourism Organization of the UN and the management of the Department of Tourism and Resorts of the Ministry of Economic Development of Georgia was held in the capital of Spain on January 22, 2010.

The meeting in Madrid was attended by the following representtaives of the WTO – Taleb Kiphai, General Secretary of WTO; Zoltan Samogui, Executive Director of WTO; Eduardo Faios Sola, Regional representative of WTO.The Georgian side was represented by Zaal Abazadze, Head of Department of Tourism and Resorts and Beka Jakeli, Deputy head of the department.

The objective of the meeting was to deepen the intercommunications between Georgia and the WTO and execution of collaborative projects in 2010.

The General Secretary Tabel Kiphai said that Georgia has been collaborating actively the World Tourism Organization in recent years.

The head of Tourism Department Zaal Abazadze thanked the General Secretary for his support and invited him to visit Georgia.

Zaal Abazadze talked about the tendencies for development and perspectives, he stressed out the current projects in the country particularly Svaneti as 12 month ski resort and Anaklia as a combined sea resort and asked the General Secretary to get involved in the consulting process. Since the WTO is responsible for the development of regional tourism the deputy head of the department Beka Jakeli introduced two initiatives: Development of tourism in South Caucasus and development of Black Sea tourism.

The Development of South Caucasus includes the promotion toursm and collaboration between the private sector and the government and creation of collaborative tourism products.

As for the Black Sea region it is important to promote the development of the upstanding tourism in this region.

The Georgian side asked the representatives of the WTO to come to Goergia and hold seminars for the representatives of universities.

The General Secretary of WTO said that he is ready to visit Georgia and help to execute different initiatives.