Kazakhstan a 'jewel of Central Asia'

Moreover, the former Soviet-governed nation in the heart of Euro-Asia, Kazakhstan will host the upcoming seventh edition of the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) from June 7 to 9; concurrently chairing the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) during the same event to be held at the country's capital city Astana.

In conjunction with this, homegrown tourism player Borneo Tours Sdn Bhd (Borneo Tours) will be launching a forthcoming marketing initiative slated towards capitalising on the tourism opportunities between here and Kazakhstan.The said initiatives are very timely for us as the seventh WIEF 2011 would have our Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak attending the prestigious event.

“It is also a partnership that we are looking forward to, of which will contribute to the growth of inbound tourist arrivals from the Central Asian region to hereandnbsp; further supporting the efforts of Sarawak Tourism Board to garner more international arrivals into Sarawak particularly, and Malaysia in general, said Borneo Tours director of sales and marketing Kho Sze Min to The Borneo Post in an interview.

The initiative would witness the partnership between Borneo Tours and Air Astana to launch Borneo Tours-Central Asia Travel Products by this June 1 simultaneously across East Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia.Air Astana is Kazakhstan's national carrier where 51 per cent of its shareholding is held under President Nazarbayev while the other 49 per cent is owned by British Aerospace.

We believe that the people of rapidly-developing Kazakhstan are ready to travel. This is the next step that we are taking to develop bilateral tourism traffic between Malaysia and Kazakhstan via Air Astana at the Almaty airport; as well as looking into other surrounding countries like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyztan and Tajikistan, stated Kho. Currently, there have been air traffic between Kuala Lumpur and Astana, Kazakhstan's capital and financial district, since November last year.

Specifically, the partnership would provide the the assistance for Air Astana to boost the tourist traffic between the two countries, added Kho.

Borneo Tours is being appointed by Air Astana as the exclusive sales and marketing partner for East Malaysia, Brunei, the whole of Indonesia and Singapore for travel packages between Kuala Lumpur and Almaty, Kazakhstan. While the initial departure and arrival operations are restricted via Kuala Lumpur, we hope to open up access to East Malaysia as well in the near future.

Additionally, Kho also expressed his hopes that the agency would be able to gather the participation and co-operation from its regional partners across Southeast Asia in opening up for the inter-tourist traffic between the region and Kazakhtstan.

We have a good international network across Southeast Asia, with tour packages to be available here, Jakarta, Medan, Batam, Singapore and Brunei. Notably, after the Prime Minister's visit to Kazakhstan in June, I believe that there will be a lot of business and trade agreements to be signed, of which tourism will be one of the major sector to be of focus.

Under the marketing initiative itself, we are promoting our Pearls of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan 10-Day, Nine-Night Package. The public can easily access Borneo Tours webpage at www.borneotours.com.my for more details on the package as well as information on our Central Asian destinations, he underlined.Geographically, Kazakhstan is an inland nation; in other words, it has no coastline although it does have large lakes.

It is this lack of geographical feature that Malaysia has to offer Kazakh visitors, but has yet to be tapped. Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world and by 2015, it will join the top-ten oil exporting countries. According to Worlds Bank Doing Business 2011 Report, the country is ranked as the most improved economy.

We are hoping that through the partnership with Air Astana, it will increase the passenger traffic from Kazakhstan into Sarawak and at the same time, generating more interests amongst Malaysians to visit Kazakhstan as an attractive tourism destination, highlighted Kho.

Source = theborneopost