The second International Conference of Rural Tourism will be held in Batumi on October 19-20. The main topic of the conference will be “Rural Tourism as Business”.

The conference will present presentations, reports and seminars by invited Georgian and foreign experts, and introductory practical visits will be arranged on tourist routes throughout the Adjara region.

The topics of the Conference include:

Village and village life as a tourist product, business and source of income;

Innovative services and tourist products to maintain rural / village authenticity in parallel with innovative services;

Rural tourism development prospects and challenges in the Adjara region/tourist infrastructure in rural areas;

General standards of rural tourism (service standards, types of family guest houses, etc.);

Georgian hospitality and hospitality as a business;

State programs in rural tourism development in Georgia and other countries;

Competition in rural tourism, positive and negative impacts and sides of the competition;

Attracting tourists in rural areas and advertising.

The conference will be attended by the owners of family guest houses, tourist agencies, the representatives of the different fields of rural and eco-tourism, as well as the representatives of governmental and non-governmental organizations.

“In the Adjara region, rural tourism is at the initial stage of development, so it is important for us to get acquainted with the international experience and successful business examples of rural tourism.

“Although the locals of Adjara region have started to actively engage in tourism sphere and the number of the providers of family guest houses and other tourist services is significantly increasing, there is still a lot of work in the direction of tourism business development,”  said Tinatin Zoidze, Director of Tourism Products Development Agency of Ajara Tourism Department. “Accordingly, we need to get acquainted with other people’s experiences and use it in practice. This is the main goal of our conference and I think that we will have interesting speakers this year, too.”