– Given the current situation, labor collectives and ordinary citizens can vacation in our country. At the same time, we are suggesting that the owners and managers of our sanatoriums and resorts lower prices, as there are currently few vacationers,” explained Deputy Director of the Tourism Department Mikhail Kim.
He also noted that Kyrgyz guesthouses and sanatoriums will soon create the most comfortable conditions for foreign tourists. An advantage of vacationing in Kyrgyzstan is that Russian citizens do not need to obtain a visa to visit the Central Asian republic.
– We propose to move in three directions: medical, business, and sports. The country has enormous opportunities in the field of business tourism. About one and a half thousand various international and domestic press conferences are held annually at Issyk-Kul. Approximately a thousand are held in other regions of Kyrgyzstan. However, there is one small problem: neither in Bishkek nor at Issyk-Kul are there large conference halls. We can accommodate, roughly speaking, up to 500 people. But we receive requests from companies engaged in network marketing, which conduct off-site team buildings for 3-4 thousand people that last for two weeks. Unfortunately, we cannot currently meet the needs of such large clients,” said Ruslan Ashymkanov, founder of the Association of Tour Operators of the Kyrgyz Republic, at the beginning of the 2015 tourist season.
This proposal from Kyrgyzstan was made in connection with the fact that on November 28, after Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian military aircraft over Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the application of special economic measures against Turkey. In particular, a ban was introduced on charter air transportation between Russia and Turkey.
It is worth noting that last year, Forbes magazine published a ranking of the most visited resorts in the former Soviet Union, which included two Kyrgyz guesthouses – "Blue Issyk-Kul" and "Aurora." The basis of the health resorts at Issyk-Kul is treatment with mineral water and therapeutic mud. The sanatoriums conduct laboratory studies, hydrotherapy (mineral, pearl, oxygen baths), hydrocolon therapy, phyto- and Finnish saunas, mud therapy, inhalations, salt mines, massage, physiotherapy, as well as numerous programs for detoxification, rejuvenation, and body shaping.