With 6.3 million tourists visiting the country in 2016, Georgia has become a popular tourist destination. In May, the number of international visitors (those who stayed in the country 24 hours or more) increased annually by 19% (compared to the same month in the previous year). While Tbilisi Airport is the main border-crossing point, in May, Batumi Airport overshot Kutaisi Airport, famous for its low costs flights, and experienced a 20% annual increase in the number of arrivals. The concert of legendary musical band “Aerosmith,” which took place near Bat...
ISET Economist Blog
A blog about economics in the South Caucasus.
Jun
12
May
08
Tbilisi residents have already experienced a fair number of cycles in street vending regulations where local authorities tolerate, then regulate, and then evict street vendors. These cycles correspond with economic trends and election cycles starting in 2006, when street vending was declared illegal by the Tbilisi Government and the first attempts were made to enforce the ban.
Just recently, the Tbilisi Mayor’s Office restarted its efforts to restrict trading in the streets of Tbilisi, claiming that illegal stalls in the busiest places prevent mov...
Apr
17
Everybody knows Bakar and Tengo (BATE Generals), two businessmen from a very popular Georgian TV series, 'My wife's best friends' ('ჩემი ცოლის დაქალები'), who became incredibly rich from a start-up with a seemingly 'nonsense' idea to export the 'tails' of khinkali (traditional Georgian dumplings) to Bulgaria. Later on, BATE Generals created a special office for ideas, where their relatives and unemployed friends of their friends were solicited to generate promising business ideas. BATE Generals is paying a fixed amount to the idea generator and a ...
Apr
01
Vake has always been one of the most prestigious districts in Tbilisi and being a “Vakeli” has been associated with high social status for no obvious reasons. In the picture: Vake Park, one of a few green places in Tbilisi and thus a big asset for the Vake district. Maybe having an opportunity to walk every day in this park makes people living in Vake so special.
The recent publication of the Real Estate Laboratory (REM Lab), a joint project of ISET, TBC Bank and JumpStart, reports a remarkable growth in the real estate market in 2016. The growth was obs...
Mar
11
In the last few decades, large supermarkets (referring to all modern retail, which includes chain stores of various formats such as hypermarkets, convenience and neighborhood stores) have changed the retail business landscape in many countries through larger store formats, more shelf space, an increased variety of goods and services, and extensive marketing strategies. The so-called “supermarket revolution” has been underway in developing countries since the early 1990s, and supermarkets have now gone well beyond their initial upper and middle class cust...
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