On October 15 one of the largest cruise liners “MS Thomson Celebration” entered Batumi seaport carrying up to 1800 passengers onboard. American-Holland liner was served by a local travel company Adjara Tour. During the day foreign guests visited main tourist attractions of the city. In addition, they had a chance to get acquainted with Georgian cuisine and folklore traditions.

According to the information of Department of Tourism & Resorts of Ajara Batumi sea port has received 26 cruise ships from January, 2014 till nowadays. As a result, approximately 14 720 foreigners have visited our region. Last year, in the same period just 16 cruise ships entered Ajara with 5 162 foreigners. Based on today’s data, in comparison with 2013 year 3 times more cruise tourists visited Ajara in 2014.

It should be noted that cruise tourism statistics is constantly rising in recent years. In 2012 the number of cruise ships reached 10, in 2013 this number amounted to 16; while in 2014, 30 cruise ships entered our region. Visit of large cruise ships have conditioned an exceptional increase in number of cruise tourists in our region. The biggest cruise ships entering Batumi Sea port were "Riviera" (1150 visitors+750 crew members, date: July 24), "Seven Seas Mariner" (750 visitors + 445 crew members, date: August 14), "Prinsendam" (800 visitors + 400 crew members, date: October 13) and "Thomson Celebration" (1250 visitors + 550 crew members , date: October 15).