Sustainable rural tourism project in Georgia seeks crowdfunding support

With annu­al vis­it­or arrivals to Geor­gia expec­ted to more than double the pop­u­la­tion of the former Soviet repub­lic, “Good Tour­ism” Insights con­trib­ut­or Richard Shep­ard is work­ing to mit­ig­ate the neg­at­ive effects of over­tour­ism in rur­al communities.

Tour­ism in Geor­gia is approach­ing 8 mil­lion vis­it­ors annu­ally and is pro­jec­ted to reach 11 mil­lion in a few more years. That’s in a coun­try of only 4 mil­lion. The risk of over­tour­ism and all the neg­at­ives asso­ci­ated with it is loom­ing. Rur­al areas risk either being left behind or overwhelmed. 

The Black Sea Sus­tain­able Rur­al Tour­ism Pro­gram helps com­munit­ies focus on sus­tain­able and respons­ible tour­ism activ­it­ies to ensure that all stake­hold­ers bene­fit. We have been slowly work­ing towards our goal of giv­ing rur­al com­munit­ies an out­let to the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket and help­ing them devel­op sus­tain­able struc­tures and practices. 

We have star­ted work in two Geor­gi­an com­munit­ies — Kazbegi and Nukriani. 

Kazbegi is already see­ing the effects of mass tour­ism. We hope to help mit­ig­ate the neg­at­ive effects of that with the help of the loc­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment organization. 

Nukri­ani is rel­at­ively untouched. How­ever, it over­looks a main tour­ist des­tin­a­tion of Sigh­nagi and can offer a dif­fer­ent type of immers­ive tour­ism that is hard to find through the usu­al com­mer­cial tour­ism channels. 

This year we invited uni­ver­sity stu­dents to par­ti­cip­ate in a hack­a­thon to design and devel­op a web­site for us — one that would be focused on Geor­gi­an com­munit­ies, their work, accom­mod­a­tions, activ­it­ies, and sup­port for sus­tain­able tour­ism. The event, which took place in early March with the sup­port of Inter­na­tion­al Black Sea Uni­ver­sity and our part­ner Bridge Innov­a­tion & Devel­op­ment, intro­duced con­cepts of sus­tain­able tour­ism and com­munity-based tour­ism to young entre­pren­eurs in a coun­try with a huge youth unem­ploy­ment problem. 

The win­ning team is build­ing a web­site for rur­al com­munit­ies in Geor­gia that will reflect their fresh ideas and enthu­si­asm for the concept of sus­tain­able tour­ism. We are plan­ning to have the web­site com­pleted and launched in late sum­mer, time for the grape har­vest and time enough to plan a trip. 

We would be forever grate­ful for a con­tri­bu­tion to help us fin­ish the web­site. Our crowd­fund­ing cam­paign is not pub­lic yet, but you can help make the launch suc­cess­ful by con­trib­ut­ing now. We even have some prizes. So please con­sider help­ing us help our Geor­gi­an com­munit­ies at chuffed.org/project/travel-with-impact.

Fea­tured image: A dis­tant view. Kazbegi, Geor­gia. Photo cred­it Richard Shep­ard / SRDI.

About the author

Richard Shep­ard is the founder, Trust­ee and advisor to Sus­tain­able Rur­al Devel­op­ment Inter­na­tion­al (SRDI), a UK not-for-profit social enter­prise offer­ing advice and devel­op­ment ser­vices on sus­tain­able tour­ism. SRDI is imple­ment­ing the Black Sea Sus­tain­able Rur­al Tour­ism Pro­gram in Ukraine, Geor­gia and Turkey.