ASTANA, Kazakhstan, June 6. Kazakhstan plans to enter the TOP 50 tourist destinations, said the Chairman of the Tourism Industry Committee of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Kazakhstan Nurtas Karipbayev, Trend reports.
"Kazakhstan ranked 52 out of 119 in the list of tourist destinations according to the World Economic Forum's Travel and Tourism Development Index. Two years ago, our country ranked 66th among 117 countries. The long-term goal is to enter the TOP 50 of this rating," he said.
According to him, improved rankings based on various criteria, including price competitiveness, quality of service and socio-economic impact, show that Kazakhstan is moving in the right direction.
"On the other hand, this is an indicator of the coordinated work of central government agencies, executive authorities, associations, businesses, and related industries. At the end of last year, the tourism industry not only fully recovered from the pandemic, but also reached a historical high in key tourism indicators," Karipbayev said.
As he noted, in 2023, 9.2 million foreign citizens visited the country, which is 2 times more than in 2022.
"More than 9.6 million domestic citizens traveled within the country. This figure exceeds 2022 by 1 million people. Placements provided services worth more than 229 billion tenge (about $510 million), which is 1.3 times more than in 2022," he noted.
Meanwhile, investments in the amount of $4 billion were attracted to the tourism industry of Kazakhstan from 2020 through 2022. In 2022, the volume of investments amounted to 513.3 billion tenge (about $1.07 billion). In addition, over the indicated period, more than 400 tourist facilities were built in the country.