"Meet in the heart of Eurasia!" This was the slogan of Kazakhstan at one of the biggest fairs in the field of business tourism IMEX in Frankfurt. This year, heads of the largest travel agencies, heads of airlines, leading hoteliers and experts gathered in the fair. In total, almost 3,000 participants from more than 90 countries. Our country was represented by tour operators, representatives of the hotel business, as well as organizers of conferences and prestigious events. They expressed their willingness to host the highest level congresses, exhibitions and summits.
“For example, in 2019, Kazakhstan earned over US$6 million thanks to 12 international events. We hope to restore these figures as soon as possible. Kazakhstan presents availability for travel, not only in terms of visas, but also in terms of flights to other countries, to both Europe and Asia. And thirdly, these are the issues of infrastructure availability and its price. Our venues can be booked at more affordable prices compared to European cities,” noted Galymzhan Seilov, General Manager of the Department of Tourism Product Development at Kazakh Tourism.
According to foreign experts, Kazakhstan is attractive in terms of business tourism. A number of foreign companies have already planned their events in the country this year.
“We are planning to have our convention, which is called the BIS Eurasia which will be in the end of May, the third week of May; we will have our award show. It is well-located; we have companies from all over the world, coming from Europe, from Asia also from America, so we believe it is a great location, and also because we visited Kazakhstan in September last year,” said Jesus J. Moran, an Executive Director of a company.
“We are planning to make corporate events in Kazakhstan, bringing executives and doctors from Turkey to Kazakhstan, to plan meetings and leisure together. We are very excited to start a business with Kazakhstan, because we are bringing a lot of tourists from Kazakhstan to Turkey, but now we believe it is our turn,” added Gokhan Guler, Corporate Events Manager of a company.
Along with Frankfurt, the tourism potential of Kazakhstan will be presented this year at other global venues - in Tokyo, Warsaw and London.
Translation and editing by Saule Mukhamejanova