Regional Political Risks and Sustainable Tourism Development Tendencies: A Case Study

The tourism industry is extremely susceptible to political and social unrest.Countries aiming to develop their tourism sector understand this and strive to maintain peace and economic stability.However, for developing nations such as the Georgia, with its strategically attractive location, ensuring socio-economic stability presents a significant challenge.This difficulty is being solved by creating an adaptive environment that fosters both tourism growth and regional economic well-being.The main aim of the article is to examine Georgia as a case study to explore how political issues can influence tourism industry sustainable development.While political instability often hinders tourism, Georgia's case deviates from the norm, potentially offering new approaches for tourism development in such circumstances.This study employs a Vector Autoregression (VAR) model to analyse the impact of various factors, such as -the correlation between the Index of Global Real Economic Activity and tourism revenues, GPRH (Geopolitical Risk Index), and geopolitical events on Georgia's tourism industry from 2006 to 2022.The analysis will focus on the period before and after the war to assess its influence.By analysing the relationships between these variables, the study aims to understand how global economic conditions, geopolitical instability, and the war specifically, have influenced the evolution and economic effects on Georgia's tourism industry.This study's key finding reveals a positive correlation between tourism revenues and geopolitical risks in Georgia, even considering the war.This finding suggests a more nuanced relationship between these factors than previously assumed.