Caucasus (bbabo.net), - In Georgia, the dissatisfaction of people engaged in various areas of business is increasing, or rather, the dissatisfaction of those who own a particular business, because the service personnel remain silent. What's really going on? What are Georgian businessmen trying to achieve and why is their aggression against those who operate in the same field as them growing, but with one difference - they are citizens of the Russian Federation?

People who came to Georgia from Russia rented many food establishments, hotels, travel companies and others here. Unlike local businesses, they have to pay rent, but they still employ more employees who receive higher salaries than before, and the cost of serving customers is also lower than before. So where and how do Russian citizens earn money if the locals can’t do it? Before moving on to the details, I will tell you the revelation of a Muscovite Sasha, who rented a Georgian travel company, and now his business, one might say, is thriving.

“I rent a company along with an office and transport for $5,000 a month, but at the same time I have changed the prices for service packages. I improved the hotels in which tourists should be accommodated, achieved a reduction in costs, and if previously serving one tourist cost 5 thousand dollars, then I reduced this price to 2 thousand dollars. It is clear that now I have less profit from each guest, but there are so many people who want to use our services that I intend to expand and additionally hire new employees.”

This young man’s wife and children also live in Georgia. His wife participates in the business with him. Like my brother and mother... In other words, they made this business a source of family income, and everyone around them is happy. By the way, the employees hired from among local residents are also very pleased - he retained everyone, and doubled their salaries. Ultimately, the picture develops this way: in the hands of the Georgian owner, one or at most two tourist groups a month resorted to the agency’s services, and the new manager from Russia in three months brought their number to almost 50. This, by the way, is very useful for the country , since tourists pay money not only to the agency, they also spend it on souvenirs, on food, and make some purchases - a little “shopping”.

Meanwhile, would-be businessmen in Svaneti set a price of 70 lari for using the cable car (1 lari is equal to approximately 34 rubles - bbabo.net). Just imagine! An air ticket Tbilisi - Mestia, that is, a flight from Tbilisi to Mestia, costs 90 GEL, and a cable car - 70 GEL. Then they are sincerely surprised why there are no people?! Until the attitude towards tourists, who are considered fools with pockets full of money, changes, nothing will help the Georgian tourism business. Visitors understand perfectly well that 70 GEL for a cable car ride is a completely inadequate price, that it is too expensive, and, naturally, they refuse this service. Here is the answer to the question why the number of people wishing to use the cable car has dropped so much. It is extremely simple: because the service is incredibly expensive!

Now Georgian businessmen are urgently calling on the authorities to prohibit Russian citizens from carrying out business activities in Georgia. They explain their demand by saying that Russia, you see, is an unfriendly country for us, and therefore we should not allow its citizens to earn money on our territory.

But in this case, let Georgian businessmen explain something else: if Russia is not our friend, why do we import from there 100% of the wheat and flour necessary for baking bread? Why are we so willing to use cheap Russian oil and why on earth did we replace Turkish cereals, sunflower and corn oil with higher quality and cheaper Russian products? Or maybe someone thinks that friendship should be one-sided, that there is nothing reprehensible in the fact that we get everything we need from there, but at the same time refuse to take anything there and sell it there? Or maybe none of the million Georgian citizens living in Russia do business there and earn Russian money, then sending it home to Georgia? Then let them be banned from working in Russia and everyone sent home.

However, Georgian businessmen probably understand better than others that their prices are unrealistic, and their entire business is built on the principle of fleecing the population. In your opinion, is it possible to prepare the culinary symbol of Svaneti - kubdari - from frozen and tasteless meat imported from Brazil, which is what more than 90% of restaurants do? Yes, in Svaneti you won’t find real tasty Svan kubdari during the day with fire, and then they whine - tourists don’t come to us anymore. Why then are tourists forced to pay 35-40 lari for one kubdari, and even a tasteless one, if they are made in at least 5 pieces from meat purchased at 8 lari per kilogram, that is, they are sold at 7-8 times more expensive than the cost? And is it really difficult to understand why the guest who has eaten this dish does not have a second desire to waste money on a worthless dish?!

Now, in addition, a new problem has arisen. Georgian tour operators and restaurateurs also speak loudly about this. After the abolition of the visa regime with China, the number of tourist flights to Georgia from the most populous country in the world increased noticeably, but it turned out that accepting the Chinese as guests is not so easy. Many of them do not speak English at all, and it is very difficult to find Chinese-speaking guides and service personnel in Georgia. Food is also a huge problem, since the Chinese are not particularly impressed by Georgian cuisine - they prefer Asian dishes and, by the way, cannot understand why there is so much bread on the tables. Finally, it is initially difficult to fool them - they are interested in detail about how much this or that product or service costs, what this or that dish is prepared from. Several restaurants even asked for a certificate for a specific product, asked where the meat, vegetables, even herbs were purchased... So, it is not surprising that many Chinese businessmen are today interested in renting a travel agency in Georgia or organizing their own, and independently transport and serve the Chinese on site. The Georgians are again dissatisfied: they say, there is nothing left for us.

We have been arguing for decades that our country has enormous tourism potential, but we cannot hone and improve this area, or regulate it. Every year, we raise prices on everything we can - from cave tours to cable cars and canyon boat rides. Yes, we take tourists for a kind of cash cows and get angry why they don’t get milked anymore, why they don’t pay unrealistic prices. We are not embarrassed when a rural hotel is priced the same as a Radisson or a Marriott. You cannot allow 30 GEL to be charged for a meal listed in the service as dinner, which includes a glass of tea, one egg and a piece of cheese. It is impossible for Adjarian khachapuri with two eggs to cost 10 lari more than with one. This is the bitter, or rather, stupid reality in which we live. And therefore, one should not be surprised that tourists began to prefer to deal not with Georgians, but with Russians or, if you like, Chinese operators.

There is another, no less interesting detail - in the Adjara region, travel agencies have been taken over by Turkish citizens, but no one protests this, no one complains why Turkish tourists (whose numbers are quite large) fully use the services offered to them by their compatriots. No one talks about the fact that in a five-star hotel in Antalya, a 10-day vacation for two people with three meals a day and service in the spa costs much less than a similar service in Adjara. The Turkish owner of one of the hotels said: I have a huge complex, a chain of hotels for 2 thousand guests, and I expect to receive a profit of 5 dollars a day from each tourist, I don’t need more, but the hotel is almost fully occupied throughout the year. Do you understand what this approach is? This entrepreneur plans to receive only 13 lari as profit from each vacationer, and this despite the fact that in Georgia the profit margin starts at 30-40 lari.

Before this, I already wrote that something similar is happening in the automobile market. Car dealers complain specifically about Russian businessmen who, having arrived in Georgia, took up this business. Gentlemen, remember well that people who spend a lot of money earn this money themselves, in other words, they are far from fools and will not allow anyone to deceive them so easily. And if they fall for the bait once, they will never do it again, therefore, this resource has exhausted itself, they “don’t bite” anymore, and therefore your income has fallen. So, be kind, engage in healthy competition and do your business without ripping people off, but run it in such a way that everyone is happy. You can’t take out a million-dollar loan with the hope of paying off the debt within one year and then expect to make a huge profit the next. This is not how business is done anywhere, and no matter how much anyone tries, this will not happen in Georgia either.

Levan Gabashvili, “Georgia and the World”

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