The summer tourist season is over. It showed that Kazakh citizens were even more active in choosing domestic locations and resorts for their vacation. Overall, experts say that the volume of domestic tourism has been growing for the second year in a row. While the summer season`s results are still being summed up, analysts revealed the figures of the first months of the year. According to the data of the first quarter of the year, the number of Kazakh residents who went to domestic resorts increased by over 120 percent. That's over a million people. During this period, the provided services amounted to 26 billion tenge, which is 26 percent more than the same period last year. The number of foreign travelers visiting the country is breaking records as well.
“We have an e-konak system that counts the number of international tourists traveling to Kazakhstan. According to its data, approximately 100,000 people came to our country between January 1 and May 31, which is the beginning of the summer season. And 125,000 tourists traveled to Kazakhstan in the period from June 1 to August 20. But this is only the e-konak data. We should keep in mind that this system didn’t take into account all the locations. Thus, over 30 percent that we covered can be safely multiplied by 1.5-2 times,” said Yernur Kenzhebekov, spokesperson for the Kazakh Tourism National Company.
According to the statistics, attractions located in Almaty city and region remain the most popular destinations for tourists. For example, over 350,000 people visited the popular mountain cluster in six months. This shows a double increase. Over 320,000 people visited the city of Almaty in the first months of 2022, one fifth of them were foreign travelers. Experts say that there is an explanation for this. That region of the country is leading in terms of the number of tourist areas and tourism products.
“Most foreign tourists, including from the Arab countries, choose Almaty and its mountain cluster. Our beach destinations are popular mainly among domestic and Russian tourists. This year we noticed a big trend among tourists to visit Turkistan, especially at the beginning of the year. Mangystau and its beach resorts is the next popular tourist destination followed by Nur-Sultan and Burabai,” added Kenzhebekov.
