TBILISI, April 12 (Xinhua) -- More than 1.61 million international tourists, a record high in history, visited Georgia in the first quarter of 2019, the country's National Tourism Administration said Friday.
In a statistics report, the administration said the number of international travelers rose 2.2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, hitting a record high in history.
The report indicated that Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia were the top three largest source of tourists in the first quarter, with over 296,000, 254,000 and 232,000 tourists visiting Georgia, respectively.
However, China became one of the fastest growing source of tourists to Georgia apart from its neighbors. During the first quarter, over 5800 Chinese tourist visited the Caucasus country, a remarkable increase of 59.3 percent compared to the same period of last year.
Analysts said they expected to see increasing number of Chinese tourists to Georgia in the future thanks to the implementation of the Free Trade Treaty between the two countries which took effect in January 2018.
