Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
INTERNATIONAL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT
Hall (1991, p. 80) details that until the mid-1950s, tourist facilities in the
USSR were primarily social-class oriented and developed for domestic
tourists who generally vacationed with workers from the same collec-
tive or trade union. Werner (2003, p. 147) when referring to Shaw (1991)
specifies that “throughout the Soviet period, health spas (sanatoria) and
children's Pioneer camps were the most common destinations for domes-
tic tourists […]. In contrast, foreign tourists, including those from social-
ist countries, generally went on sightseeing tours of cities.” International
tourism in Kazakhstan has changed since the end of the Soviet period due
to the country's economical shift to a market-economy and the develop-
ment of foreign trade. The modernization of Kazakhstani lifestyles and
international tourism development has led to an increase in the number of
visitor arrivals, with visitors primarily looking for Silk Road, adventure
and extreme tours (Werner, 2003).
CURRENT ECOCULTURAL COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM
DEVELOPMENT
The country has faced drastic changes in its cultural, economic and politi-
cal situation since its independence in 1991. Economic changes as well as
major political event (the OSCE Summit in November 2010) and interna-
tional sports competitions (the 7th Asian Winter Games in February 2011)
are forcing the country to look more closely at the development of its tour-
ism industry. Kazakhstan holds numerous assets to become a major player
in a dynamic tourism policy in Central Asia and already offers a wide
range of different types of tourism: educational and entertainment tours,
ethnic as well as ecotourism. In particular, it was mentioned by the Minis-
ter of Tourism and Sport of the Republic of Kazakhstan during the hosting
of the 18
th
World Tourism Organization assembly hold in the capital city
Astana in September 2009 that, “today tourists seek new ideas and travel
destinations and are interested in original culture and history of nomad
civilizations as well as ecological and active tourism”
(Dosmukhambetov,
2009). This approach was reinforced by the Delegation of the European
Union of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which stated that “ecological tour-
ism is considered one of the
priority directions
for the development of the
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