ASTANA: Kazakhstan anticipates up to 500,000 tourists from China this year, Chairman of Kazakh Tourism national company Kairat Sadvakasov said. He expressed these remarks at the Kazakhstan-China Tourism and Investment Forum in Beijing.
Sadvakassov said that last year, the number of Chinese tourists to Kazakhstan reached 367,000. This year, considering different events, Kazakhstan was planning to increase the flow to 500,000. This is the forecast and goal of the country.
At the forum, Kazakhstan’s seventeen regions presented their tourism opportunities. Sadvakasov said that they believed that Kazakhstan is one of the most attractive destinations for Chinese tourists, being not just a neighboring and friendly country with a visa-free regime but also a strategic partner of the Belt and Road initiative.
He said that there are many opportunities to increase the tourists flow from China to Kazakhstan, including those stemming from a visa-free regime that came into effect on November 10, 2023. He also noted the keen interest from both Kazakh and Chinese tour operators.
China Central Television’s crew visit to Kazakhstan
In April and May, a film crew from China Central Television will visit Kazakhstan to shoot documentary movies about the country’s top tourist locations. They will visit the cities of Shymkent, Astana, Almaty, as well as the Turkistan and Almaty regions.
Amanda Wang, vice president of Trip Group, a top global travel service provider based in China, said Almaty is the most popular destination for nearly 70 percent of Chinese tourists, citing a marketing study conducted during the summer of 2023.
The study also revealed that 60 percent of Chinese tourists visiting Kazakhstan are millennials, also known as Generation Y, born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s. She added that 29 percent of Chinese tourists’ hail from Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen.
