At the Atameken site, a draft law “On introducing amendments and additions to some legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on tourism activities” was discussed.

“At present, the Ministry of Culture and Sport is developing a draft state program on the development of inbound and domestic tourism in Kazakhstan, which is currently being coordinated by government bodies. At the same time, the process of drafting the bill is underway, and, despite the very tight deadlines, we still have the opportunity to make changes and amendments to the draft,” - Pavel Kazantsev, Chairman of the committee of the tourism industry of the presidium of NCE RK Atameken, said.

The main objective of the new bill is to legislatively approve the innovations proposed in the draft state program, as well as to harmonize and systematize the legal field of the industry.

“The purpose of the draft law is to create legislative conditions to stimulate the development of domestic and inbound tourism by optimizing regulatory tools, determining state support measures for the tourism industry, and regulating outbound tourism by setting optimal requirements,” - the independent expert, President of the "Profi-T" International Agency for Effective Governance and Development the competitiveness Gulnar Kurbanbayeva explained.

To achieve this goal, 7 key areas have been proposed:

- revision of standards related to the improvement of the conceptual apparatus, classification of tourism, legal regulation of state support for the industry;

- introduction of the institute of priority tourist investment project and priority tourist territories;

- expansion of the list of subjects in the field of tourism;

- infrastructure development of the tourism industry;

- institutional strengthening of JSC "NC "KazakhTourism";

- improving the regulatory policy in the field of tourism;

- vesting the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the authorized body in the field of tourism and other state bodies with relevant competence.

Gulnar Kurbanbayeva noted that there are serious innovations in the second direction. First, two new institutes are being introduced - a priority tourist investment project and a priority tourist territory.

“At the moment, within the framework of the state program, 10 destinations are defined on a territorial basis. Experts calculated the number of tourists actually arriving in the territory, and they became the locomotive of the industry. Now these projects will have investment support,” - the expert explained.

The second innovation is the reduction of the threshold for investment projects from 2 million MCI to 200 thousand for obtaining preferences in accordance with the Business Code.

In general, it is planned to amend 16 regulatory legal acts, of which 8 Codes and 8 Laws.

“Not a single amendment was excluded from the table “without a fight”, or the amendments were edited taking into account the nuances of international norms adopted by Kazakhstan. If the amendments come into force, the situation in the tourist business will be significantly improved in terms of regulation, and the state has the ability to control it,” - Gulnar Kurbanbayeva said.

The business took an active part in the amending. The Kazakhstan Tourist Association (KTA) submitted only 23 amendments, 7 of which were not considered. CTA's proposals included: reduction of fines of small businesses by 50%, of medium - by 100%, introduction of the concept of an individual tour, exclusion of the concept of a package tour, introduction of touristic code.

The dispute was caused by the concept of a “guide”, as well as the question of introducing a mechanism for issuing certificates to guides. According to the project, local executive bodies will have to issue a certificate giving the right to work as a guide.

“We do not fully understand how it will work and technically look like,” - Rashida Shaikenova, director of the Kazakhstan Tourist Association, was interested in.

Karlygash Altayeva, Director of the Tourism Department of NCE RK Atameken, emphasized that the National Chamber has developed 16 amendments regarding the activities of the guides, the introduction of certain concepts, the differentiation of the bank guarantee of tour operators, amendments to the Tax Code, the Land Code, etc.

Kanat Yeleusizov, member of the tourism industry committee, proposed to consider mechanisms for protecting travel agents from fraudulent actions of tour operators in the framework of the system of guaranteeing the rights of citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the field of outbound tourism and provide administrative responsibility for guides who are not entitled to engage in this activity.

Gulnar Kurbanbayeva noted that it should not be forgotten that there are norms generally accepted for all business entities and the introduction of duplicate norms for the tourist market is not appropriate. Also, many business proposals can be implemented by amending the bylaws.

“Now it is necessary to collect the amendments, support them with calculations, necessary justification and send them to the Atameken Tourism Development Department. Already on October 15, the project will be submitted for approval and on November 1 it will go into the Majilis. From the new year we will work under the new law and it is necessary to carefully work out every article today,” - Pavel Kazantsev said.