COMPETITIVENESS OF TOURISM INDUSTRY IN KAZAKHSTAN - Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges - page 34

and sports stadiums capacities. To improve the overall competitiveness of
the tourism industry ground transportation infrastructure, tourism infra-
structure and hotel price competitiveness should be of main concern as
they represent the pillars pulling down the overall competitiveness of the
business environment and infrastructure.
Although the current rank of Kazakhstan in the WEF Travel & Tour-
ism Competitiveness ranking list is only 93rd corresponding to the 67th
percentile (Table 3), the country has great potential to be among the top 50
competitive countries in the tourism industry due to the efforts undertaken
by state decision makers. There is a positive trend in international com-
petitiveness of Kazakhstan as demonstrated above in Table 4.
THE MAIN ISSUES AND CHALLENGES OF TOURISM
INDUSTRY IN KAZAKHSTAN
Kazakh authorities take all efforts to become a center of tourism in the
Central Asian region by passing tourism legislation and development pro-
grams in order to realize the country's tourism potential and to promote
a competitive tourism cluster. The pressing challenge for the country is
to create a modern tourism infrastructure that meets international stan-
dards. The public-private partnership envisages creating incentives for
private investments in the development of the tourism cluster as well as
using state funds 8 . Within the framework of the public-private partnership
16 thousand kilometers of roads will be built and repaired by the year of
2020. 9 To attract foreign business investors in the tourism industry for the
reconstruction of existing and creation of new tourist facilities and accom-
modation, visa procedures have been simplified for citizens of economi-
cally developed and politically stable countries—for 34 countries it will
not be required; in addition, one window service will be provided for them
(Nazarbayev, 2012).
To improve the level of training of human resources in the tourism
industry, the Government of Kazakhstan established scholarships within
the “Bolashak” Program. There are also positive changes in promoting the
tourism image of the country throughout the world. In 2010, Kazakhstan
opened an official online tourism portal providing information about the
country as a tourist destination and giving opportunity to potential visitors
to book hotels, flights, and tours. International mass media and different