Intermediate results of the tourist industry were summed up at a meeting of the Committee of the tourist industry

On 10^th of August this year. A regular meeting of the Committee of the tourist industry of the Presidium of NCE RK "Atameken" took place. The event was attended by Roza Asanbayeva, Chairman of the Committee of Tourism Industry, Deputy Chairman of the Board of NCE RK “Atameken” Yuliya Yakupbaeva, Vice Minister of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan Askar Batalov, and other participants of the tourist market.

Opening the meeting of the Committee, Rosa Asanbayeva noted the important role of holding the International Specialized Exhibition "Astana Expo-2017" in promoting the tourist potential and image of Kazakhstan abroad. Thanks to this event it was possible to test the tourist potential of the country and identify certain aspects, the work on which requires constant improvement for the development of tourism.

 During the meeting, Yulia Yakupbaeva informed about the results of hearing the reports of the directors of the Regional Chambers: "Currently, in order to consolidate the tourism market in the regions, work is underway to establish sectoral tourism associations. In 7 regions, such associations are already active. Also, the issue of extending the seasonality due to attraction of anchor investors is being worked out, which in turn will increase the tourist flow".

According to the Deputy Chairman of the Board, it is planned to carry out a re-inventory of tourist facilities in the regions and update the developed Roadmaps. the Roadmap for the development of tourism in the Shchuchinsk-Borovo resort area in this direction was praised, which is a good example for other regions. In addition, the Chamber continues to collect legends, which already creates positive public resonance among Kazakhstani residents.

Moreover, during the speech the question was raised about the role of Atameken in improving the visa and migration regime. It was informed that together with CNS of RK, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Ministry of Culture and Sport of the Republic of Kazakhstan, work was carried out to educate market subjects on the registration of foreign citizens, the creation of a joint information guide on visa support issues, and the creation of an operational headquarters for emergencies.

Yuliya Yakupbaeva also announced a new initiative of the National Chamber - the introduction of multimodality to redistribute the load between airports to ensure a uniform workload. According to the information, the airport of Shymkent is overloaded, and the airport of Taraz located 160 km is underloaded. Airports of Uralsk, Petropavlovsk and Kostanay take 3 or fewer flights a day.

This initiative, according to Yuliya Yakupbaeva, will help resolve the problem of low congestion of airports, increase the availability of destinations, increase tourist flow and reduce the cost of air travel.

Vice Minister of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan Askar Batalov also spoke at the meeting, who informed about the results and plans of work within the Project Department of the development of domestic tourism:

"With regard to the visa and migration regime, we plan to extend the existing 72-hour visa-free regime for the Chinese tourists until the end of 2018 and make it nontransitive. For transit citizens of India and Iran to make visa-free travel for 3 days. Since 2018 - to cancel visas for 5-10 days for Chinese citizens who have reached retirement age, from 65 years and older.

In addition, on the basis of the existing site kazakhstan.travel, it is planned to introduce a visa-migration portal, which will help, including hotels, to work with the registration of foreign citizens. Moreover, together with the MID RK, we are working on the issue of extending the Open Sky initiative, which showed its significant results. "In addition, the issue of personnel training for the tourist industry was on the agenda. On this issue, it was said that following the meeting with the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Yerlan Sagadiyev, an agreement was reached on the establishment of a working commission that will hear the training institutions for the training of personnel for the tourism industry and will work out recommendations for improving the educational programs of future industry specialists.

According to Askar Batalov, guides play an important role in the "Sacred Card". However, the Vice-Minister paid special attention to the poor quality of the services provided by the guides. In his opinion, thanks to the system approach in working with guides, it will be possible to resolve issues of accounting and improving the quality of services. Moreover, within the framework of the "Sacred Card" it is planned to work closely with the akimats of the regions and the tourist market to create tourist products that will meet all the requirements of tourists.

It is also worth noting that a lot of questions from the participants of the meeting came about the activities of JSC NC "Kazakhtourism".

"This organization will deal with information and advertising activities, as well as attract investment by analogy of a single operator by accompanying investment projects. "Kazakhtourism" will not be engaged in any activity on tourism products", - explained Askar Batalov. The meeting continued in the "question-answer" mode. However, given the wide range of issues from the regions, it was decided to hear a joint decision from all regions. The first on-site hearing was agreed to be held on 14^th of August this year in Almaty.