Kazakhstan sees domestic tourism growth

In the first quarter of 2019, the number of domestic tourists rose by 9.6% - from 1.1 to 1.2 million people. Most of them - 917.8 thousand people - (813.2 thousand a year before) were served at the places of accommodation. The number of tourists who visited protected areas was 190.2 thousand and 69.8 thousand people visited health resort areas. Alongside, the number of inbound and outbound tourists reduced by 8.2% and 0.6% respectively - from 2.3 to 1.6 milllion people.

In December 2018, the then Minister of Culture and Sport named the top 10 tourist destinations of the country. They are Nur-Sultan (with the potential of up to 1 million tourists per annum), Burabay Resort Area (2 million tourists per year), Alakol Lake and mountain cluster of Almaty region (2.5 million), Bayanaul Resort Area, Imantau-Shalkar Resort Area, Balkhash Lake, Turkestan, Baikonur Cosmodrome and Mangistau.

The new state programme of tourism development for 2019-2025 presented at the Government's meeting this year includes ten strategic measures which will allow the country to enter the leading tourism empires of the world.

As per the Ministry's forecast, the implementation of these measures will have a huge economic effect and will let create as many as 75,000 constant jobs, primarily in remote rural areas and will let attract 800 billion tenge of direct investments. The number of inbound and outbound tourists is expected to rise 4fold. The share of tourism in the country's GVA will reach 4.5 billion U.S. dollars per annum.