Macroeconomic situation in the country
Georgia's economic situation was dominated by the consequences of the Covid 19 pandemic. After a second wave of infection in May, the number of cases skyrocketed at the beginning of July and reached a new high of over 6,000 corona cases per day in November. The country with its 3.7 million inhabitants recorded up to 100 deaths per day. The government's vaccination campaign, which began in mid-year, made slow progress due to widespread skepticism among the population about the safety of the vaccines. The vaccination rate remained extremely low, with less than 25% fully vaccinated at the end of the year.
This also dashed hopes of a rapid recovery in tourism. International visitor numbers in August were just 25% of the number of visitors in August 2019. While tourism strongholds such as Batumi and Svanetia were comparatively well attended thanks to travelers from surrounding countries, smaller destinations, where the majority of BPN tourism companies are present, recorded few visitors.
But the situation also remained fragile politically after the parliamentary elections in October 2020. The rifts between the Georgian Dream party, which has been in power since 2012, and the United National Movement, which is in opposition, deepened and led to a pronounced polarization of political life.
BPN activities on site
In view of the latent economic crisis and the decline in purchasing power among the population, the results of the Business Academy were relatively good with one face-to-face seminar and 18 webinars with 228 paying visitors. For the first time, newly developed webinars were offered on topics such as time and self-management, leading in crises, positioning/branding and content marketing.
To strengthen the brand image and maintain customer contact in times of a lack of face-to-face seminars, the team published 30 online specialist articles on business topics, which met with great interest with up to 3,000 page impressions per article. More than 110 coaching sessions were held, mostly by telephone or video conference.
