Annotation. In the scientific article "Challenges in mountainous regions and peculiarities of tourism development", significant attention is paid to the peculiarities of tourism development in Georgia, especially before the pandemic, during the pandemic and post-pandemic periods. Attention is focused on the main features that accompany the development of tourism in mountain regions.

Key words: mountain tourism, post-pandemic period, recreational tourism.

Introduction

Tourism is one of the promising branches of the economy for Georgia. Its priority from an economic or social point of view has a particularly positive impact on the standard of living and daily life of the local population.

Tourism became a special priority for Georgia in the post-mandemic period. The fact that our country is still new and completely unexploited in terms of tourism opportunities, gives us the prerequisite to introduce new tourist destinations to both the domestic and international markets. This is especially true for mountainous regions, because they have the necessary resource potential, thus facing the challenges of modern tourism. 

Main visions and set tasks of the paper

Georgia is a country for which tourism business is one of the main economic links. Economic indicators are one of the main means of improving the social and literally living conditions of the local population, everyday life, since tourism is a large service industrial complex, where a large part of the population is employed. The contributing factor to all of the above is that Georgia is distinguished by rich, diverse and, at the same time, many unexploited tourist resources, promising tourist destinations. This is the opportunity, the main calling card for Georgia to enter the international tourist market with a new word. This priority situation imposes a special responsibility on tourism, which became significantly clear in the process of the global outbreak of the Kovid-19 pandemic for all countries with the development of tourism.

As it turned out, the covid-19 pandemic has presented humanity with new social, economic and political challenges. The development of pandemic processes has dealt a significant blow to the entire sector of the economy, including tourism, which has significantly reduced the revenues from it. In the current period, when the world economy was able to adapt to the pandemic, we can consider tourism as a fast-recovering branch of the economy as the main stimulating factor for the recovery of the Georgian economy. In our opinion, in the conditions of the pandemic or after the pandemic, it was tourism that adapted to reality the fastest and most easily.

The main lever for the development of tourism is the variety of available natural resources, with which all regions and geographical zones of our country are distinguished.

Based on this, the demands placed on tourism changed along with the pandemic, so today mountainous regions and mountain tourism are one of the important directions of the sector. The pandemic has changed the nature of people's leisure and made them closer to nature. Mountain, nature and recreational tourism in general has become an important corollary of the current and post-pandemic process. In this direction, the Adjara region has a special interest in the development of mountain tourism with its picturesque landscape and tourist resources, which attracts significant interest from both domestic and international visitors. This is evidenced by the successful business projects implemented in the region in the form of family hotels and camping sites, which made mountain tourism in the Adjara region more attractive for tourists.

For Georgia, the mountainous regions are distinguished by their special touristic and recreational potential, as well as climatic features, as well as balneo-climatic and natural features [Ghvinjilia…2019]. As for the mountainous area of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, with its recreational, cultural and historical values, diversity of natural resources, we can really make it an important tourist destination with proper promotion and PR. One of the proofs of this is given by the fact that during the pandemic, relaxation in a bar was replaced by a tendency to relax in the mountains.

In the article, important attention is focused on the analysis of the necessary motivating factors that will be an incentive in Adjara, especially in the future, for the development of recreational tourism in various forms of utilization of mountainous regions. Activation of the demand for medical, sports-refreshing and cultural-cognitive tourist destinations from vacationers is an important future task. The main thing is to take advantage of the challenges of Mtianeti and to manage other socio-economic or demographic problems in the country, which require the implementation of a number of complex measures by the joint efforts of the state regulatory policy and private sector.

In this direction, the article presents the main conclusions that tourism, and recreational tourism in particular, is considered as an important tool for the development of the mountainous area of our region and new challenges, to bring the population out of the crisis.

The Autonomous Republic of Adjara, with its touristic and recreational potential, is an undeniably outstanding region among the tourist destination regions of Georgia. This uniqueness, as we know, is primarily due to the proximity of the recreational resources of the mountain and the sea at the same time, the visitor has the opportunity to visit a variety of tourist-recreational recreation and entertainment places of the mountain, i.e. high-mountainous Adjara, just one hour's drive from the sea.

In this direction, the article presents the main wishes and conclusions that tourism, and recreational tourism in particular, is considered as an important tool for the development of the mountainous area of our region and new challenges, to bring the population out of the crisis.

The Autonomous Republic of Adjara, with its touristic and recreational potential, is an undeniably outstanding region among the tourist destination regions of Georgia. This uniqueness, as we know, is primarily due to the proximity of the recreational resources of the mountain and the sea at the same time, the visitor has the opportunity to visit a variety of tourist-recreational rest and entertainment places of the mountain, i.e. high-mountainous Adjara, just one hour's drive from the sea.

From all of the above, we can conclude that the tourism values of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, which has an important resource potential, which provides the opportunity for the development of tourism in many directions. In general, the positive contributing factors to the development of tourism, which, as we said, show their results in economic and social characteristics, are especially valuable for the local population. As for which tourist destinations are relevant and what allows us to say this, in our opinion, first of all, the great potential of recreational resources should be considered as the topic of discussion.

Also, we cannot ignore Adjara, as one of the outstanding regions, with its historical, cultural values, traditions and old customs. The colorful folklore, dance, traditional handicrafts, local dishes and celebrations characteristic of the region provide an opportunity to make the mountainous regions, in particular Adjara, more interesting in the post-pandemic period by combining other natural and anthropogenic tourist recreational resources.

The variety of tourist and recreational resources of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara gives us the opportunity to enter the tourist market with various innovative routes. This applies especially to the challenges of the mountainous area. Based on this, in our opinion, the following factors will lead to an increase in demand in both the domestic and international markets:

1. Adjara has the main touristic-recreational value, which is the possibility of using mountain and sea resources at the same time;

2. In the region, there are resources that can be used in all three directions in terms of recreational direction [Mikashavidze…2017:15]:

• Healing

• Sports fitness

• Cultural cognitive

We think that these destinations will become increasingly popular in the future, especially in the post-pandemic period. The pandemic caused serious physical and moral problems to the world population, which are still under investigation, and medicine does not have a conclusion if the virus has damaged the lungs, respiratory tract, and even unknown consequences that may occur in the future. This gives us the main opportunities to make our conclusion that recreational tourism and the demand for recreational resources will increase especially after overcoming the pandemic, since medical, rehabilitation or wellness needs have become necessary and necessary for the majority of consumers. I would also like to point out here that recreational tourism has become a priority for any visitor in the post-pandemic period, since this is the tourist destination that will help them overcome the physical, moral and mental stress caused by the pandemic.

3. Adjara has such valuable resort tourist and recreational destinations as: Beshum, Kobuleti, Makhinjauri and Batumi itself, mountainous Adjara and protected natural areas. This is an incomplete list of recreational values with which we can offer strategic tourist routes for recreational tourism users.

4. It should also be noted that for the Adjara region, its flora and fauna are a good means of developing ecological tourism, a tourist destination suitable for recreational tourism.

5. The development of recreational tourism will be particularly important for the mountainous regions, almost all administrative units: Keda, Shuakhevi, Khulo or Kobuleti, are distinguished by the variety of resources in both medical and sports, health and cultural-cognitive direction.

The problems of the highland regions, which are classified as economic and social problems, are manifested in the critical consequences of unemployment, lack of income, employment problems, the absence of a market for locally produced products, the extremely socially disadvantaged population whose goal has become to leave the villages and move to the big cities for their survival. A sign of aging, emptying, unfortunately, destruction of problem villages. Therefore, in our opinion, mountain tourism for the region, promotion of mountainous regions and development of a number of tourist destinations by utilizing the existing tourist-recreational resources will give the opportunity to turn the tourism business into one of the viable and promising businesses for the mountain population. This is evidenced by the fact that the mountainous area of the Adjara region allows us to promote innovative products through the development of the following tourist destinations, such as: agro-tourism, rural tourism, eco-tourism, recreational tourism in various directions, mining, medical and cultural-cognitive tourism, etc. [Georgia…2018]. In conclusion, we can express the ambition that the variety of tourist and recreational resources of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, especially in the mountainous regions, gives us the opportunity to enter the tourist market with various innovative routes. As we mentioned, the past regulations of the Covid-pandemic led to the fact that tourism destinations changed their face and the high demand for crowded and active tourist destinations was replaced by the demand for tourist resources in suburban and mountain regions. This is another positive trend that the tourism opportunities of the mountainous regions of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara will be well adapted to the requirements of the modern international and domestic tourism market. 

References:

1. Development Strategy of Highland Settlements of Georgia 2019-2023 (project). (2018). Tbilisi. https://mepa.gov.ge/Ge/Files/ViewFile/2303
2. Gvinjilia, M. & Aladashvili, M. (2019). Tourist and recreational resources of Georgia. Lecture course. Tbilisi
3. Mikashavidze, Zh. & Mikashavidze, V. (2017). Tourist resources of Georgia (p. 15). Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University.