The Future of Georgian Retail is Here: Inside the first Outlet Village in Tbilisi

Tbilisi is no longer Europe’s best-kept secret and has, by now, come up with a script most first-timers follow without quite realising. Up to Narikala for the view. An hour sweating it out in the sulphur baths down in Abanotubani.

The obligatory photo of the Holy Trinity Cathedral, then a slow wander through the balconied lanes of the old town. And let’s make one thing abundantly clear: the script is here because the script is good. If you’re visiting Tbilisi for the first time, you shouldn’t skip what’s already on it - nobody's arguing with that.

But nobody should be arguing that it has started lacking a little, missing a whole bunch of new additions that have truly transformed Georgia’s capital over the last decade. What people should do across their days has expanded, and the clearest example of that sits about twenty-five minutes out of town, just off the Kakheti Highway.

Tbilisi Outlet Village opened at the tail end of 2025, and it's the first spot of its kind in the entire Caucasus - not just Georgia, the whole region. That alone is enough to land it on most lists of new places to visit in Tbilisi. But anyone who's lost an afternoon at Bicester Village outside London, or wound up at La Vallée on a Paris trip, knows a place like this deserves a visit because it’s a great spot to unwind and do your last-minute souvenir shopping. Open-air streets instead of mall corridors. International brands mixing with local ones. Room to actually breathe between shops.

Here's what really catches you off guard, though: the look of it. You brace yourself for the usual retail-park blandness and instead you get something with a lot of thought and care behind it. The village was put together by the joint effort of the Spanish firm L35 and the Georgian architect Dodoshka Chubinidze, pulling their cues straight out of Old Tbilisi - the light brick structures, the colorful facades and small iron balconies, the antique-looking street lamps, etc. If you’ve already ticked off Old Town off your itinerary, you might even recognize which buildings inspired which corner.

But in the end, the prices are what makes the drive truly worth it for most people, obviously. More than 40 brands - including the giants like Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Nike, Adidas, Lacoste, Guess, Furla, Levi's, etc - priced at thirty to seventy percent below retail. And not only during some frantic Black Friday weekend, either. The discounts run all year, which the Europeans have started taking for granted but the Caucasus region, frankly, hasn’t had the opportunity to enjoy until now.

Here are some facts to keep in mind, when putting Tbilisi Outlet Village on your itinerary. Open every day, Monday through Sunday, 11:00 to 21:00. It's on the Kakheti Highway (E60), roughly a twenty-five-minute drive from the centre, with free parking on site and chargers if you're driving an EV and fancy topping up while you browse.

And, before you ask - no, Tbilisi Outlet Village is certainly not trying to elbow the cathedrals or the baths or the view from the funicular off your itinerary. Those are still more than worth your time, no Tbilisi trip would be complete without either. It's just that the city's must-do list has grown an important new wing - and for anyone who wants to do some shopping, or has a free afternoon going spare, or simply wants somewhere pleasant to spend a few hours that happens to be open after six in the evening, the village has earned its slot fair and square.