DOI kodi: 10.52340/ekonomisti.2026.03.10

Expanded Summary

This article examines adaptive marketing capabilities in Ajara through 16 semi-structured interviews, strategic documents for 2015–2025 and official tourism statistics. The findings show a complementary asymmetry: public organizations are stronger in system-level analysis and coordination, while private firms react faster to commercial signals. The novelty is linking these differences with adaptive alignment, an information-analytics gap and market portfolio resilience.

Introduction

Tourism marketing in Ajara can no longer be understood only through advertising or destination image. Visitor experience is created by many actors, from destination management organizations to hotels, tour operators, transport providers and digital platforms. The important question is how quickly market signals become an available product and a reliable experience.

During 2015–2025, Ajara moved beyond a model dominated by visitor growth and the seaside product. The Tourism Development Strategy of Ajara 2019–2025 placed more emphasis on four-season tourism, MICE, wine and gastronomy, eco and adventure products, service quality and KPI-based management. After the 2020–2021 shock, market portfolios, seasonality, economic value and product-market fit became more visible priorities.

Main part

The study was designed as a longitudinal embedded comparative case study. Sixteen face-to-face interviews were conducted in February–May 2026: ten with private tourism businesses and six with public or DMO representatives. The interviews were combined with the 606-page Tourism Development Strategy of Ajara 2019–2025 and official statistical data for 2015–2025.

Public and private organizations proved adaptive in different ways. Private firms mainly follow bookings, conversion, competitor prices, inventory and online reviews and can react quickly through prices, packages or sales channels. Public organizations work with wider signals such as air connectivity, seasonality, market value, destination reputation and product readiness. Their advantage is system-level coordination. The two capabilities are different, but complementary.

The data also show a movement from visitor volume toward portfolio and value management. In 2025, Georgia recorded about 6.86 million international visitor visits and 5.52 million tourist visits, while nominal international travel revenue reached around USD 4.69 billion. Visitor volume had not fully returned to the 2019 level, while nominal revenue was higher. This shows why visitor numbers alone are not enough as a performance measure.

Ajara’s market structure creates another challenge. Border crossings through Sarpi, Batumi Airport and Batumi Port reached about 1.75 million in 2025; these figures do not represent unique tourists. Türkiye, Russia and Israel accounted for about 75.4% of recorded foreign flows, while the ten largest markets represented about 88.7%. Diversification should therefore be assessed together with concentration, seasonality, transport dependence and product-market fit.

Four-season positioning follows the same logic. Ajara has seaside, urban, MICE, mountain, gastronomy and adventure products, but communication alone cannot create year-round demand. A product must also be accessible, bookable and supported by stable service quality.

A central finding is the adaptive information-analytics gap between public and private actors. Public organizations rely more on visitor flows, revenues, aviation and seasonality, while private firms use conversion, margin, repeat sales and customer feedback. Much of this information remains in parallel systems. The main problem is the limited conversion of existing data into shared decisions. Adaptive alignment is therefore considered through five areas: data, market, product, timing and feedback.

Conclusion

Ajara’s tourism marketing transformation in 2015–2025 was broader than a shift from traditional to digital promotion. It was a movement from campaign-centered marketing toward more adaptive destination management. Public organizations contribute system-level information and coordination, while private organizations contribute transaction-level knowledge and faster commercial reaction.

In practical terms, Ajara needs a minimum shared evidence base and a regular public-private learning mechanism. Market concentration and seasonal risk should be monitored together with revenue, connectivity and product readiness. Private-sector feedback should also return more systematically into public planning.

Keywords: adaptive marketing; dynamic capabilities; destination management; public-private coordination; market portfolio resilience.