How well-regarded international brands like Ibis, Wyndham and Le Meridien built a successful presence in the Georgian real estate market with the help of a forward-thinking local company.
Anyone watching Georgia over the last two decades has seen high-scale real estate presence in the country increase in leaps and bounds. At the heart of that transformation, you’ll often find Archi. With a history of building homes for over 45,000 people, the company name is almost synonymous with residential development. The Archi team proved they could build, and build well.
The real question was never if Archi could deliver, but whether it would stick to the niche it was a comfortable leader in by a margin, or if it would pivot. Instead of playing it safe and developing more residential complexes, the company decided to expand toward hospitality. And not just expand, but do so with a grand vision to fundamentally elevate the standards of real estate in Georgia by bringing in partners the rest of the world already trusted.
The company’s first major play was the ibis Tbilisi City. Instead of a tentative first step the team took to the plunge with a serious commitment backed by a 45 million GEL investment alongside French hospitality giant Accor. The project created over 50 jobs. Accor itself apparently recognized it as a "next-generation" property. That kind of endorsement from a global leader doesn't happen just because someone in the upper echelon woke up in a good mood one day; it was a clear signal to the market: Archi is a company fully capable of meeting international partners’ demands for large-scale projects—and do so with comfort.
Bolstered by the major success of the Ibis partnership, Archi turned its attention to the coast. In Batumi, they secured a partnership with Wyndham, the world's largest hotel franchisor, for the Archi Ramada Batumi aparthotel project. In Batumi, where tourism is the major economic component, it may elevate the game to a new level. For locals looking to invest in seaside apartments in Batumi it’s an additional incentive to buy. Being plugged into a global booking network would make it easier to keep the property filled and get higher ROI. For tourists, it means more upscale accommodation standards, which can be in short supply.
The projects with ibis and Ramada were smart, strategic plays. But the latest one, the Le Meridien partnership at Sioni Lake is a different level of ambition entirely. The resort could very well be Archi’s legacy project, the company’s magnum opus, so to speak; an entire five-star ecosystem built from the ground up, complete with a world-class spa and an aqua park. It’s backed by a staggering 200 million GEL investment and is developed in a partnership with the ultimate name in luxury, Marriott International.
When you see a local company make a bet this big, it tells you what you need to know. There’s a name associated with reliable partnership here, and it puts international confidence in the future of the Georgian market itself.
