MICE forum 2014: Kazakhstan. Forecast and outlook
Kazakhstan’s awareness on the Asian market is 80%, and on the European market — 45%. Social and economic growth and political promotion of Kazakhstan on the world arena has increased foreign business interest in developing commercial relations, which, of course, leads to an increase in the number of business trips to Kazakhstan and abroad.
According to statistical data, the flow of Kazakh travellers to the CIS amounts to 6,3% and to the countries outside the CIS — 93,6%. Most resident travellers went to the CIS countries — Kyrgyzstan and Russia. The most popular destinations outside the CIS are China, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Germany, the Netherlands, and Thailand. In 2009 travellers from Kazakhstan visited about 86 countries of the world. The average stay of Kazakh travellers in the CIS was 6 days, in the countries outside the CIS — 7 days. The main travel purposes were business and professional interests. As for incoming tourism in Kazakhstan, business travel still dominates (82 — 84%), the rest accounts for eco-tourism and sports tourism.
The seasonal fluctuation of outcoming travel (the maximum tourist flow) falls at the third quarter of the year — 35% of all outcoming travellers, although in general seasonal changes in outcoming tourism are not great.
MICE and the business travel market in Kazakhstan
The outlook for the growth of Kazakhstan`s business travel market is far-reaching. This trend is facilitated by various factors. First of all, Kazakhstan is situated in the centre of the most rapidly growing outcoming travel market in the world. China and Russia, as well as India and the Middle East are expected to demonstrate growth by 220 million outcoming travellers per year by 2020. Second, after Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan join the Customs Union, social and economic integration in the Central Asia will increase twofold, which also affects the frequency of business trips and the growth of the business travel market. Third, increased competition in the Central Asia between Russia and China is promising great economic prospects for business travel.
Despite the Kazakh companies` need in business travel and MICE, one of the main problems of the region is the lack of policies in companies and specialists in this area. Many companies still don’t understand the importance of business travel cost planning and optimization. In 2012 a survey of 500 Kazakh companies was carried out. It turned out that the issues of business trip planning referred to job duties of secretaries in 28% of companies, heads of departments in 19%, business trip coordinators in 15% of cases, directors in 12%, marketing departments in 6% of companies, financial departments in 3%, HR in 1%, other employees in 15% of cases.
As the result, only every seventh company has a coordinator responsible for business trip arrangement.
Kazakhstan and MICE forum 2014
MICE forum 2014 will include Hosted Buyers from the most economically active and prospective cities of Kazakhstan for the purposes of business travel development: Almaty, Astana, Atyrau. They include representatives of direct corporate customers as well as the representatives of Kazakhstan`s MICE and event agencies. The informational partner of the event is the Russian Association of Business Travel.
Please, note that the date of the event has changed! MICE forum 2014 will take place on June 9th, 2014 in Kiev (Ukraine).
MICE forum 2014 participants will have an opportunity to present their companies’ potentials as well as to communicate with MICE customers.
For additional information please contact: Events@businesstravelrussia.ru.