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resort. We have a huge amount to offer both tourists and businesses. Our history is rich; in the 19th century, as one of the first oil- exporting ports, we had very wealthy residents and guests here that built an elegant resort town. We have a first century Roman castle, museums, art galleries and one of the biggest botanic gardens in the world. We have a beautiful coastline, mountains and forests - an unspoilt natural environment. We’ve just announced a new ski resort that that’s being developed just two hours away from Batumi. We have theatres, film and music festivals, and an opera house that has just opened, not to mention concerts.” Top stars to have appeared
recently in Batumi include Macy Gray, Sting and Enrique Iglesias. As a developing project, the trick has been to persuade first hotel operators to invest then to bring in casino operators - there are cur- rently three with another due to start operations in September. “It’s a chicken and egg situation.
You need investors to come in order to persuade other investors. We started with nothing: in fact, when I was first appointed to this post, I asked the treasury how much money we had and it was minus 100,000 lari [-E42,500]. When you have nothing, you have to be very creative. So we have made great use of public private partnerships, but we have also had investment from the Georgian government and the European Union. So far, we have put around $1bn [E698m] into developing the city and the surrounding area.” The results of the investment in
the public areas are striking. Amid the extraordinary buildings are renovated parks with wide paths and stylish lighting. The prome- nade along the beach, currently 2km long, will extend to more than 15km to the Turkish border, and is now lined with palm trees, each individually lit. Dancing fountains have been installed in a lake sur- rounded by quirkily designed restaurants.
Batumi is also home to a new
Ministry of Justice public service building (the first of six to be built in Georgia) that brings all the state- to-individual services like identity cards, births and marriage registra- tion, and company registration under one beautifully designed roof, with efficient and friendly staff and the most streamlined, least bureaucratic system you will ever find.
A small international airport, built in 2007, is just a few minutes’ drive from the city centre along a recently finished boulevard. Confident that the public author-
ities are doing their part, private investors, particularly top name hotel operators - first Sheraton, then Radisson, Kempinski, Hilton and Holiday Inn - have put their money down on the table. The Sher- aton opened in May 2010, the Radis- son at the end of July this year. Construction is well underway for Kempinski’s seafront hotel and Hilton has just broken ground on its project as Holiday Inn. Others are in the pipeline. “One of our biggest problems
when we started was that we didn’t have enough five-star hotel rooms,” said Varshalomidze. “If we are serious about attracting the right sort of tourist, we need to offer them the service and standards they demand. Counting all hotel rooms, from bed and breakfast upwards, we currently have around 10,000 available in Batumi
36 October 2011 • interview
Casino Iveria will open at the Radisson Blu in the autumn
The Formula 3 raceway in Batumi is already in place, with support buildings to follow
The spectacular – and spectacularly efficient – Justice Ministry building in Batumi
Under construction, the sinuous Kempinski Hotel with the Alphabet Tower behind featuring the Georgian script
- and that is not nearly enough to meet the demand we expect and hope for. We are aiming for around 70,000 rooms to be available within the next ten years, most of which will be five-star accommo- dation.”
He continued: “The number of people coming here has grown extremely quickly. In 2004 we had around 80,000 visitors. Last year we welcomed just under 1m. Based on the figures so far this year, we
expect a 45 per cent increase 2010, to more than 1.4m. As we get more hotels, we will be able to welcome more people.” As the city’s development is still
work in progress, the marketing of Batumi as a resort is necessarily limited currently by its capacity. Similarly, transport links, which are still patchy, are improving all the time as demand rises. “Of course, it’s not something that can happen all at once,” said
Varshalomidze. “But we are already getting more flights in from places such as Qatar and Dubai, and Ryanair we hope will start a service from next year. Within two years, I am confident that we will be an important destination for airline operators.”
Batumi has a sub-tropical climate:
hot, admittedly humid, summers and mild winters. inland in the mountains the winters are snowy and will offer excellent skiing. The
weather will help in they city’s ambition to be attractive as a year- round resort, as will the casinos. “We haven’t set a limit on how
many casinos will operate here,” said Varshalomidze. “We are offer- ing casino operators significant breaks. If they work in partnership with the five-star hotel operators, we have waived the operation tax for the first year [250,000 lari - just over E100,000/$150,000] and the business conditions here are very
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