Astana adopted tourism development concept

"In 2013 there was developed a master plan of tourism development in Astana in the light of EXPO-2017. We have also presented the concept of Astana tourism development till 2020. The next year we will come up with the city brand», Marat Igaliyev said. It was told that for the last 18 years the number of hotels in Astana has increased 40 times as much. Visit of foreign tourists has increased by 50 times. Domestic tourism has increased by 43 times.

"By the number of visitors per 1000 residents we compare Astana to such cities as Seoul and Istanbul. The city has strong preconditions which can help develop tourism. We focus on developing business, event and medical tourism. Astana has a lot of venues for large events. One of the priority steps in the sphere of event tourism is entering the largest international association of MICE-tourism", Alisher Abdykalikov, Director of the Department of Investments and Development of Astana, told.

In order to ensure continuous inflow of tourists it is planned to conduct seasonal events such as snow and ice festival in winter time or open world championship in quadcopter race in spring and other activities. Another impulse that will bring tourist inflow will be the Astana International Financial Center and a medical cluster. Astana has and keeps expanding the network of modern medical centers equipped with the latest equipment. As of today several cardiological clinics of Astana have performed more than 17 thousand complex and unique surgeries.  Also a lot of work is ongoing to prepare the city for EXPO-2017.