5 million Chinese tourists to visit Kazakhstan during EXPO-2017

Kazakhstan is expecting 5 million tourists from China during the international exhibition EXPO-2017, Tengrinews.kz reports citing deputy chairman of Tourism Commission of Kazakhstan Ministry of Industry and New Technologies Mukhit Saimassayev. “As you know, Kazakhstan will host the EXPO in 2017. Many tourists will arrive from all over the world, including China. Starting from the beginning of this year, around 20 thousand Kazakhstan citizens have visited China and around 1 thousand tourists have arrived from China. In 2017 we expect around 5 million tourists from China,” Saimassayev said. The number of Kazakhstan tourists in China and Chinese tourists in Kazakhstan has gone down over the past 2 years, he added. “The tourists flow between the two countries, according to the Statistics Agency, made 2,254 Chinese tourists in 2011 and 1,825 in 2012, while 53,331 Kazakhstan citizens traveled to China in 2011 and 40,586 in 2012,” Saimassayev said. By Baubek Konyrov