They claimed tourism grew by 1.9% but this was lower than the overall GDP growth.

Likewise many long term landlords I knew complained about 2019 being a horrible year to them. A lot of people noticed the absence of Russian tourists in their wallets.

I really have no idea how Georgia's tourism grew in absence of Russians. Thing is there's no standard metric to track tourists. A lot of countries count visitors from other cities (not countries) as visitors. Some people are counted multiple times like weekend tourists. Think about how many Turkish Grandpas must be going to Batumi to play the slots and they're back home within a day or so.