Kazakhstan ranked 52nd in the global travel and tourism ranking for 2024

Kazakhstan has placed 52nd in the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Travel and Tourism (T&T) development index. With the score of 4.07 out of 7, Kazakhstan has climbed 6 places since 2019. Kazinform News Agency correspondent looked into the data.

Leaders of the ranking remained unchanged with the United States taking the first place, Spain and Japan placing second and third, respectively. France and Australia finished up the top 5. Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Italy and Switzerland concluded the top 10 list. Notably, Germany, the UK and Switzerland have ranked lower, moving 1, 3 and 2 positions lower, accordingly. On the contrary, France and Australia moved up by 2 positions, China by 1 and Italy by 3.

In the Central Asian region, however, Kazakhstan came out as a leader: Uzbekistan ranked 78^th, Tajikistan 99^th and Kyrgyzstan 102nd. Neighboring countries to Kazakhstan in the list are Costa Rica on the 51^st place and Qatar taking the 53^rd spot.

The framework of the T&T development index includes five categorizations metrics for the 17 pillars of 102 indicators: enabling environment; policy and enabling conditions; infrastructure and service; resources; and sustainability. Kazakhstan's highest scores are 5.98 for health and hygiene in enabling environment, 6.14 for price competitiveness in policy and enabling conditions, and 5.50 for socio economic impact in sustainability. The lowest scores of all are 2.07 for cultural resources and 2.82 for ground and port infrastructure.

According to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, in 2023 the number of tourists visiting 19 Kazakhstan resort areas exceeded 3.8 million people, which is 311 thousand more than last year. Hotels at resorts in Kazakhstan earned more than 130 billion tenge ($292, 463, 600). The most popular place was the Almaty mountain cluster, which was visited by more than 2.3 million people. It is followed by the Mangistau resort area with more than 356.2 thousand tourists, the Shchuchinsko-Burabay area with 305.4 thousand tourists and the coast of Lake Alakol in the Abai region with 205.8 thousand visitors.

Kairat Sadvakasov, Chairman of the Management Board of the National Company Kazakh Tourism, in an interview with Jibek Joly TV Channel discussed the tourism industry in Kazakhstan and what are the problems that need to be addressed. He assured, “We will become top 50 by 2029, provided that those mandates and those budgets that are necessary for development are respected and allocated.”