“[MTV Live Georgia] will feature several of the world's top musical acts and will be heavily promoted and broadcast around the world (with a concentration on Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Americas, Central Asia, and many more) to MTV's one billion plus dedicated viewers via its television stations, as well as Internet and cellular platforms,” reads a press release issued by Georgian Prime Minister Nika Gilauri's office when the deal with MTV was made.
In pre-concert remarks to EurasiaNet.org, Maia Sidamonidze, chairwoman of Georgian National Tourism Agency, nonetheless termed the show "quite a good campaign" for attracting tourists to Georgia. "We always try to have a campaign that matches our capabilities," Sidamonidze said, indicating that a larger event "and more people" could have posed accommodation problems.
Concerts by musical sensations and, sometimes, has-beens have long been seen by Tbilisi as a way to boost Georgia's tourism industry, a potential economic lifeline. They also help the government argue that Georgia now is a place where visitors may run into celebrities like Sharon Stone or Sting rather than Russian tanks.
But a series of warnings from Moscow has only heightened Georgian interest in such assistance. On November 5, Russian military intelligence chief Alexander Shliakhturov claimed that Tbilisi's determination to re-seize control of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, recognized by Moscow as independent states, could lead to fresh conflict between Russia and Georgia.
