The FINANCIAL — For the first time an adventure race has taken place in Georgia. The Georgian Tourism Association (GTA) together with the Georgian Biological Farming Association Elkana organized an adventure race around the cave monastery of Vardzia in the Samtskhe Javakheti Region of Georgia.
As Deputy Chairman of the Department of Tourism and Resorts of Georgia Beka Jakeli said, these kinds of events are very important for supporting not only inner tourism, but also for breaking the stereotype of excursions which were formulated in Soviet times. “Adventure racing is a new thing which involves sport, sightseeing, teamwork and entertainment,” he said.
The adventure race was supported by the Department of Tourism and Resorts of Georgia and the Georgian Tourism Association. The race was sponsored by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The municipality of Aspindza supported the race with police presence and an ambulance.
There were 16 teams with 96 members. The race took place over 2 days. The race included three different sport disciplines: running – a 6 km distance, mountain biking – a 11.5 km distance and rafting on the river Mtkvari – a 1.5 km distance. A local team consisting of 6 members from Aspindza Municipality won the race.
The majority of those participating were different companies, for this reason the race held extra meaning for the teams.
“Vardzia Adventure Race offered an excellent opportunity to actively discover the region and at the same time strengthen team-spirit within the company, organization or group of friends,” says Nata Kvachantiradze, Director of the Board, Georgian Tourism Association (GTA).
The Georgian Tourism Association is an organisation of private tourism companies in Georgia. The association was founded in 2006. The Georgian Tourism Association works on Incoming, Domestic and Outgoing Tourism Issues and Capacity Building.
Steffen Schuelein, Consultant on Tourism Development for GTA thinks that the first adventure race was a good success.
“The organization went smoothly without major incidents, quite complicated logistics were on time and the party in the evening was great. And we were quite lucky with the weather. I especially liked the way that the members of the Georgian Tourism Association (GTA), who didn’t gain any individual benefit from organizing the race, had such great team spirit of working together and such perfect communication. This is quite extraordinary and I’m very thankful to have seen such an example of it,” Steffen Schuelein notes.
“All teams did their level best. Nobody was disqualified for not managing the route. Of course for some it was really tough, for others not too difficult. There were dramatic scenes at the start of the biking and especially in the rafting finals. I was quite happy how everything turned out, and some of the international participants even said that the spirit of this race in Georgia was much more attractive than a race with 10,000 participants and a huge organizational machine somewhere in Western Europe or the US. I completely agree!”
Steffen Schuelein mentions that Georgian companies were very reluctant to give money, even very small amounts. According to him this is a question of doing something very new and the success of this kind of events had not been proven before, but he got the impression that companies have not yet realized the huge potential of advertisement with adventure activities in Georgia.
“There is the fun climber of tri-d, the occasional rafter of Magti – but to use the party mood of adrenaline events like Lipton-Ice, Camel or Red Bull do on the international level is not yet very popular here. However, this may hopefully change in the future,” he added.
So team up, don’t forget to pack your things, grab your bike and get ready for late spring next year. The 2nd Vardzia edition is on the agenda!
Written By Levan Lomtadze
