Air Astana and Kazakh Tourism Join Five Regions to Accelerate Kazakhstan’s Inbound Tourism
ALMATY: Kazakhstan is bringing its national airline, tourism authority and regional governments together under a new international marketing strategy aimed at increasing inbound tourism and passenger flows.
Air Astana, Kazakh Tourism and five regional administrations signed a Strategic Cooperation Agreement for 2027 on September 21 in Almaty, creating a coordinated framework for promoting Kazakhstan in international source markets. The agreement brings together Air Astana, Kazakh Tourism, the Akimats of Astana and Almaty, and the administrations of Almaty, Akmola and Mangistau regions.
Rather than treating airline connectivity and destination promotion as separate activities, the partnership is designed to align the two. Its objective is to strengthen Kazakhstan’s visibility overseas while supporting the growth of international passenger traffic and tourism businesses across participating regions.
Airline Connectivity Meets Destination Marketing
The agreement reflects an increasingly important principle in destination marketing: creating demand and providing access have to work together.
Air Astana brings the airline’s international network and market reach into the partnership, while Kazakh Tourism and the participating regions contribute destination assets, local tourism products and public-sector marketing resources.
The parties plan to combine marketing, communications and organisational resources to implement joint international campaigns. The programme will also include participation in major tourism exhibitions and roadshows, familiarisation trips for foreign partners and media, B2B events and analysis of priority international markets.
For the travel trade, that creates a more integrated pipeline between destination awareness, trade engagement and air connectivity.
Digital Campaigns Will Target International Source Markets
Digital promotion will be one of the principal tools under the 2027 cooperation framework.
The partners intend to conduct coordinated digital and PR campaigns in selected overseas markets rather than relying solely on individual destination or airline promotions. Priority markets will also be analysed jointly to identify where marketing activity can generate greater tourism and passenger-flow opportunities.
Kazakh Tourism has previously identified markets including China, India, South Korea, Japan and the Gulf countries as important areas for international promotion in cooperation with Air Astana.
This gives the new agreement a particularly relevant B2B dimension: campaigns can be followed by trade meetings, roadshows and familiarisation programmes designed to move destination awareness towards actual tourism-product distribution.
B2B Activity Moves to the Centre
The agreement places considerable emphasis on direct engagement with the international travel trade.
Planned B2B events and familiarisation trips will allow overseas tour operators, travel partners and media representatives to experience Kazakhstan’s destinations and tourism products directly.
This is significant for a destination such as Kazakhstan, where the commercial challenge is not simply awareness but converting awareness into bookable itineraries.
For international operators, familiarisation programmes can provide the practical knowledge needed to build Kazakhstan into programmes covering cities, nature, culture, adventure and regional experiences.
The approach also gives local tourism businesses a channel to establish relationships with foreign distributors rather than depending entirely on consumer advertising.
Five Regions Bring Regional Tourism Into the Strategy
The involvement of five regional administrations broadens the initiative beyond a national destination campaign.
Astana and Almaty provide two of Kazakhstan’s principal urban tourism and aviation gateways, while Almaty, Akmola and Mangistau regions bring additional destination assets into the international promotion framework.
This regional structure can help connect international visitors with tourism products outside the country’s most recognisable urban centres.
Mangistau, for example, provides access to a distinctive landscape and adventure-tourism proposition, while the Almaty and Akmola regions offer combinations of mountain, nature, cultural and leisure experiences.
The commercial objective is therefore not simply to increase arrivals but to create broader distribution of visitor demand across destinations and tourism businesses.
Air Astana Links Marketing With Network Development
For Air Astana, inbound tourism is closely connected to the development of international air services.
The airline has described inbound tourism as a strategic priority linked to expanding its international network and increasing passenger flows. Air Astana’s own strategy identifies Kazakhstan’s geographic position between Europe, the Middle East, India and China as an important connectivity advantage.
The airline has also expanded its presence in the Indian market. Its 2025 annual report notes increased flights between Kazakhstan and Delhi, Mumbai and Goa, while an Air India codeshare agreement began operating in November 2025 to support stronger business, tourism and student traffic between the two countries.
That makes airline-led destination marketing particularly relevant for Kazakhstan as it seeks to convert network connectivity into visitor demand.
Kazakhstan Is Building a Broader Tourism Pipeline
The new agreement follows a wider push by Kazakhstan to develop tourism as an economic and international-positioning sector.
The country’s updated tourism-development framework through 2029 was approved in July 2026, while the government has also established a permanent coordination platform bringing together government bodies, business and tourism experts.
Kazakhstan Tourism has reported strong recent international visitor numbers. Government tourism information published in July said 15.7 million foreign citizens entered Kazakhstan, of whom 11.1 million stayed for more than one day, alongside growth in domestic tourism.
The strategic cooperation with Air Astana and the five regions adds another layer to that development: international marketing is being linked directly with aviation access, trade distribution and regional tourism supply.
From Destination Awareness to Bookable Demand
The most important feature of the 2027 agreement is its emphasis on coordination.
Destination authorities can generate awareness, airlines can provide connectivity, regional governments can develop tourism products and travel companies can distribute those products. When these functions operate separately, the conversion from interest to an actual trip can be slower and less predictable.
The new framework attempts to bring those elements into the same international marketing cycle.
Digital campaigns can generate awareness. International exhibitions and roadshows can reach the trade. Familiarisation trips can demonstrate the product. B2B meetings can create commercial relationships. Airline connectivity can then provide the physical access required to turn those relationships into passenger flows.
For Kazakhstan, the ambition is therefore broader than a conventional tourism advertising campaign.
It is an attempt to build an integrated inbound tourism pipeline connecting destination marketing, airline connectivity and international travel trade distribution.
As the agreement moves into implementation in 2027, its impact will ultimately depend on how effectively the partners convert coordinated promotion into new routes, tour-operator programmes, hotel bookings and visitor spending across Kazakhstan’s regions.
