The global lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (hereinafter referred to as the “Pandemic”) and the followed sanctions (hereinafter referred to as the “Sanctions”) adopted in response to outbreak of war in the Ukraine have caused significant damage to the global economy and created stressful economical environment. The developed processes are directly and indirectly related to the tourism complex sector, being distinguished by wide interdisciplinary economic links.
The economy of Georgia, which significantly depends on the tourism industry, turned out to be under the influence of the both global Pandemic crisis and the war between the Ukraine and Russia. Studying the created and current processes has become urgent from both the practical and scientific point of view.
The specific goal of this study is to reveal the key challenges of sustainable development of foreign tourism as an important economic sector in Georgia, where the focus is put on the macroeconomic aspects associated with the tourism. The study covers two different and, at the same time, consecutive periods of the Pandemic and Sanctions.
Studying the period of spreading the Pandemic has shown that the tourism business retention was facilitated by the State allowances, using the alternative potential of hotels for temporary isolation of visitors and infected people, as well as activation of the domestic tourism to some extent basically in outskirts and mountainous regions. Although, the tourism industry has incurred the most serious damage which has also been reflected on the country’s economy.
During the spread of the Sanctions, the number of visitors was increasing rapidly. At the first stage of the analyses of this phenomenon the attention was given to the dynamics of the number of visitors from the countries involved in the war, representing the significant segment. The analyses have shown that increase in the number of visitors of the mentioned category was impulsive and it was preceded by the similar increase of mony transfers from the same countries. It creates the opinion that their arrival greatly depends on the motivation of leaving their own countries rather than on the desire of travelling for pleasure, which should be taken into consideration in view of sustainable development of tourism.
At the further stage of the analyses the dynamics of the mentioned foreign monetary transfers were compared with the inflation and variability of the exchange rate in the country. The comparative analyses allow us to consider that the preliminary money transfers made by the visitors to Georgia from Russia and the Ukraine and the consumption expenditures incurred by them on the spot upon arrival to Georgia stimulated, on the one hand, increasing of the inflation caused by the global processes and, on the other hand, stabilization of the exchange rate during the reporting period.
The study indicates that the relatively rapid increase in the recovery of the number of tourists after the end of the active phase of the Pandemic crisis in Georgia is not only due to the activation of the tourism business. This opinion makes even more relevant the strategic goals of expansion of the tourist market, attractiveness of tourist services, use of emerged competitive advantages, and exploit the tourism industry for rational diversification of the country's economy.

Keywords: Georgia, foreign tourism, pandemic, sanctions, crisis, sustainable development
JEL Codes: L83, Q01, Q02

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