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conditions of the home countries from which a tourist originates (e.g.,
Papatheodorou, 2001; Uysal, 1998). Pull factors, on the other hand, are
vast and include many of the topics that will be discussed throughout the
chapters of this topic. Examples of pull factors are the comfort levels of
host country accommodations, conditions of host country transportation
infrastructure, natural and scenic beauty, quality of historical and cultural
attractions, and perceptions of safety and security (Uysal et al., 2008). As
with tourism development in any region of the world, a myriad of pull fac-
tors influence the speed and level at which tourism is being developed in
Central Asia (Kantarci, 2006).
Recently, we have seen a number of studies that have examined some
aspects of tourism and its variants in Central Asian countries. These stud-
ies emphasized areas such as sustainability of tourism services and strat-
egies (Beheshti et al., 2013), ecosystem services and pricing strategies
(Samimi and Kraudzun, 2013), distribution channel strategies for attract-
ing foreign tourists for Tajikistan (Beheshti and Zare, 2013); image mak-
ing (Schatz, 2008), tourism development problems and tourist attraction
clusters (Zholdasbekov, 2011) for Kazakhstan, factors determining the
characteristics of the tourism sector (Edwards, 2010) for Turkmenistan,
perceptions of Central Asia travel conditions, general and tourism specific
investment conditions, perceptions and images for Kyrgyzstan, Kazakh-
stan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan (Kantarci, 2006, 2007a, 2007b).
Small heritage tourism attractions and development case studies were
also found in the literature for Turkmenistan (Edwards, 2010) and Uzbeki-
stan (Airey and Shackley, 1997). Issues that deal with human resources in
the area of skills needed, training and tourist skills inventory in the tourism
sector were also examined for Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (Baum, 2007;
Baum and Thompson, 2007). Furthermore, the study by Zhidkoblinova
(2013) exclusively focused on the notion that further tourism development
in Kazakhstan on the world market would certainly require concerted ef-
forts from policymakers that could help form the nature of specific regula-
tions of economic relations and measures of state support in the country.
On the other hand, Palmer's (2007) work considered ethnic equality and
stakeholder involvement in relation to tourism as a tool to build national
identity in Kyrgyzstan. Kulnazarova (2010) in her dissertation points out
that because of the limited energy resources and the impairment of indus-
trialization in Kyrgyz Republic, the country regards tourism as the loco-
motive of development that has the comparative advantage structure, as
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