Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
than 95% of tourism businesses in Kazakhstan are travel agencies. Almaty
is the biggest urban center where the majority of travel businesses are
situated. Before the financial crisis, there were about 800 Travel Agencies.
They were mainly small businesses—from 3 to 10 employees, often fam-
ily-owned and operated. According to Kazakhstan's legislation, one must
be licensed in order to operate as a travel agent or tour operator. The Travel
Agencies' main activity is selling holiday packages for groups. Seasonal
tourism organizations also still exist, operating without licenses in sum-
mer for lakeside holidays or in winter for skiing. The structure and func-
tion of these agencies are rudimentary—just an organized bus, often with
a nonprofessional guide. These agencies work with domestic tourists and
such 'wild' tours meet strong opposition from licensed travel agencies.
Very often Travel Agents are acting as operators trying to develop their
own tour packages to fill the gaps in infrastructure and to promote tourist
destinations. These agencies are mainly concerned with outbound tours,
although some handle both outbound and inbound tourists. For instance,
an agency would sell a package tour to Turkey, but also organize cultural
and food tours in the country. Outbound Travel Agencies prefer to liaise
directly with foreign partners representing their own facilities like hotels
and resorts. These agencies market themselves mainly at international
travel fairs in Europe and Asia.
An average travel agent cannot afford to sell airline tickets directly—
the airlines' deposits are too expensive—so they prefer to purchase fares
through bigger agencies. Approximately 30-40 Travel Agents in Almaty
have a distributor's agreement with the airlines.
According to our research on TA businesses in Almaty (Garkavenko
et al., 2009a, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b, 2011a, 2011b, 2012), not all agen-
cies have access to the Global Distribution System (GDS). If they do it is
Amadeus. Travel agents often are not aware of any other GDS or Com-
puter Reservation System (CRS). The majority of the travel agents uses
the Internet for e-mails. If an agency has a website—it is only for the web
presence—the majority of websites are not functionally active. Founders
and owners of travel agencies are entrepreneurs with no special education
in tourism. Personnel are drawn from such former occupations as engi-
neering or political activists etc. However, a new type of agency is on the
rise—on-line Travel Agencies. Kazakhstan operates a scholarship program
known as
Bolashak
whereby graduate students are sent abroad on govern-
ment grants to complete their education in different fields. Young post-
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