The largest tourism exhibition in Kazakhstan and Central Asia - KITF 2011 - took place on 20-22 April in Kazakh city of Almaty, FTN reported.
KITF is organized by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Kazakhstan and Almaty City Administration, together with Iteca (Kazakhstan), part of ITE Group Plc (UK). This year's event breaks a record with the number of countries represented by the exhibitors.
Over the three days, KITF presents mostly luxurious holidays for Kazakh travelers.
In two pavilions at the Atakent Exhibition Centre, KITF 2011 presented about 500 tour operators and travel agencies from 40 countries, and features the national stands of nineteen countries.
Countries represented by KITF 2011 exhibitors: Australia, Brazil, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, UK, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, USA and Vietnam.
As in previous years, there was a separate pavilion for national tourism organizations, where a central place was occupied by the stand of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Kazakhstan and 16 regional tourism offices. Nineteen countries participated with national stands: Georgia, Greece, India, Indonesia, Spain and the Catalonia region, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates (emirate of Dubai), Slovenia, Slovakia, Thailand, Turkey, Croatia, Czech Republic, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and South Korea.
For the first time, Slovenia and Sri Lanka participated in the exhibition with their national stands. Croatia presented the tourism offices of Dubrovnik and Zagreb. Compared with last year, South Korea and Thailand have significantly increased their stand sizes. Peru, USA, Sri Lanka and Japan were among the new destinations at the exhibition, and Raffles Hospital (Singapore) was a newcomer to the Medical Tourism sector.