BISHKEK (TCA) — Given favorable geographical and climatic conditions for the development of mountain skiing and tourism in Kyrgyzstan, the Government has initiated a pilot project of a Mountain Ski Cluster in the Issyk-Kul province, Economy Minister Arzybek Kojoshev said at a meeting held last week in the province’s main city, Karakol, to discuss the project, the Ministry’s press service said.
The project will build five mountain ski bases in the Issyk-Kul province (Jergalan, Boz-Uchuk, Chelpek, Kerege-Tash, and Svetlaya Polyana) with a total capacity of two million ski tickets per year, as well as develop a tourism infrastructure and services and create new jobs.
The project is being implemented by an Interagency Commission, which will manage the cluster and regulate relationships between its participants and the local community.
Minister Kojoshev pointed out that tourism is an important sector of the economy, providing for employment of the local community and foreign-currency revenues. Tourism has a stronger multiplying effect than many other economy sectors.
The share of tourism in Kyrgyzstan’s economy has been steadily growing. Last year, tourism accounted for 4.4 percent of the country’s GDP, compared to 3.7 percent in 2010.
However, the minister said, a serious problem of Kyrgyzstan’s tourism is its seasonal character. The tourist season in Kyrgyzstan normally lasts three summer months, and is mainly centered on beach resorts at Lake Issyk-Kul, and during the rest of the year most tourist facilities are standing idle.
The new project is aimed at attracting tourists to Issyk-Kul all the year round.
