The South Caucasus country of Georgia has received 45 percent more visitors in the period from January to April compared with the corresponding period of last year, the country's Interior Ministry reported on Tuesday.

Between January and April, 978,521 people have crossed borders to arrive in Georgia, whereas the entire past year of 2011 had seen 2.822 million people crossing the same borders.

Of the 978,521 visitors, 301,243 arrived in April alone, representing a 61-percent increase, the ministry added.

According to ministerial statistics, the majority of the visitors have arrived from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, Ukraine and Iran.

The Ministry noted that visitors from EU countries had exceeded those from Ukraine and Iran. Austria and Moldova produced most of the EU country visitors in the four months.

The ministry reported a tripled number of Russian visitors traveling to Georgia in the first four months of the year, especially in April, when the number of Russian visitors increased by four times as against the same month last year.

The government of Georgia has been striving to boost the country's tourism industry by investing in tourism-related infrastructure and educating tourism-related personnel.

A special school for tourism and catering business was opened in April to train the country's personnel employed in the tourism sector.

Between January and April, Georgia saw construction on several big tourist hotels start in Tbilisi and Batumi, Georgia's capital and Black Sea resort cities.