internationalcasinoreview
Casino Peace at the Sheraton Batumi Hotel is the first casino to operate under the first-year licence fee waiver
Interview
The First Resort: why Batumi’s mission will succeed
Two months ago, the ambitious plans for the resort of Batumi on the Black Sea featured on the front page: the pace of development is almost unbelievably swift but very secure and offers a real opportunity for the gaming industry. It was not a story to write about and then forget, so Hugh Sorrill travelled to Georgia to meet the main driver of the change, the impressive chairman of the Ajara Autonomous Region, Levan Varshalomidze, to learn more.
mission:achievable INTERVIEW
They call it the Batumi Miracle. Seven years ago the historic Geor- gian Black Sea port in the south west of Georgia had a crumbling infrastructure, intermittent elec- tricity, a poor water supply, leaky drainage and no money. Like the rest of the country, it suffered from corruption at all levels of official- dom.
In 2011, Batumi is now one of
the fastest growing cities and resorts in the world - and one of the safest. In an enormous assertion of political will, corruption has been done away with. The infrastructure is modern and efficient. Buildings are being transformed: the historic centre is being renovated; Commu- nist-era monstrosities are being pulled down. Some of the most star- tling and innovative architecture to be found anywhere is being used in the construction of new hotels,
34 October 2011 • interview
restaurants, attractions, even gov- ernment buildings. And casinos are and will be an integral part of the mix.
“We started from ground up -
underneath the ground in fact,” said Levan Varshalomidze, chair- man of the Government of the Autonomous Region of Ajara. “We needed to sort out the infrastruc- ture before we started transform- ing the city, otherwise these new buildings would just be PR - and that’s not what we’re doing.” Varshalomidze’s bookshelf is lined with volumes of designs by the world’s most respected archi- tects; his office features scale models of iconic buildings that are either planned or underway. “We are not the Monte Carlo of the Black Sea. No - Batumi is the Batumi of Black Sea - a unique proposition.” The plan, initiated by President Mikheil Saakashvili and energeti- cally developed and put into
action by Varshalomidze, is to make Batumi a world-class desti- nation resort city, not by prescrib- ing, Soviet-style, every last detail but by creating the conditions (the infrastructure, a transport system and a fair business envi- ronment, among other things) that will allow companies and people the creativity to flourish and capi- talise on the one thing you can’t buy - Georgian hospitality. “We are within two hours by
road of more than two million people across the nearby border into Turkey,” said Varshalomidze. “We are surrounded by countries with people who are looking for a top-class hotels, service and enter- tainment. Other resorts on the Black Sea have seen very little investment and are not up to stan- dard. Most of our neighbouring countries have no legal casino pro- vision.”
He continued: “We have a great future here - and not just as a casino
Levan Varshalomidze, Chairman of the
Autonomous Region of Ajara
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