Georgia's tourism sector increased in 2010

Georgia attracted more than 2 million visitors in 2010, the highest figure since 2003, a spokeswoman for President Mikhail Saakashvili said.

“The government saw a big increase in tourism, with visits up 35 percent compared with the same period a year ago,” Manana Manjgaladze said in Tbilisi on Tuesday.

The number of visitors has increased since Georgia’s brief war with neighboring Russia in 2008, when tourism’s share of gross domestic product fell to 3.6 percent, according to Statistics Georgia.

In November, Saakashvili promised free land and the construction of a new airport to lure hoteliers and other investors to build a tourist resort at the Black Sea ports of Anaklia and Kobuleti.

Georgia’s economy may expand as much as 6.5 percent in 2010, Prime Minister Nika Gilauri’s spokesman Nikoloz Mchedlishvili said by phone.