Astana authorities expect 3 million tourists by 2020
The Head of the Astana Investment and Development Department, Alisher Abdykadyrov, says that Astana has become known all over the world as a new, hospitable and modern city and that Kazakhstan has turned into an internationally attractive country for tourists after the International specialized exhibition Expo 2017.
"It is very important to develop tourism in Astana further. As you know, we have ambitious goals. Presently, there is a strategic plan assuming that by 2020 the number of tourists will have risen over 3 times. This includes the annual increase in visits by foreign and domestic tourists up to 1 million and 2 million, respectively," he said.
As Abdykadyrov said, there were 165 hotels in the Kazakh capital in 2016, while now, 201 hotels are operating here. The room occupancy rate has tripled. The number of hostels has increased from 36 to 95. Tax revenues from hotels and catering facilities for August alone have exceeded KZT 170 million.
He noted that, according to the Astana airport's reports, 1.5 million people arrived in Astana from June 10 to September 10 [during EXPO-2017]. This includes over 600,000 people who traveled by international routes.
In general, about 10,000 tourists approached the information kiosks and over 1,000 people contacted the single call-center during the exhibition.
30,000 people used AstanaCitiPass as a tourist card. More than 5,000 people went by double-decker sightseeing buses, while 12,000 people from 13 countries (Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Slovakia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Germany, China, Spain, Poland, France, and Serbia) used audioguides.