The development of active types of tourism in Kazakhstan: theoretical aspect and practical guidelines

Tourism is a complex socio-economic process, and its organization requires a serious scientific justification. Studies of the essence of active tourism, its specific features are complex, systematic and territorial. The study of the efficiency of using the tourist and recreational potential of the territory for many regions of Kazakhstan can be an important step on the way to optimizing the regional structure of nature management. At the same time, the development of regional tourism can solve the problem of organizing recreation of the population, attracting foreign tourists to the regions of Kazakhstan, providing them with unique, competitive tourist products with a good bundle of their services. In the article the author developed a classification of active and adventure tourism, systematized data on the territorial organization of active routes, existing and proposed by tourist companies in the regions of Kazakhstan, and also the current state of sport and active tourism in the country was analyzed.

Today, tourism is perceived as the most mass phenomenon of the 20th century, as one of the brightest phenomena of our time, which really penetrates into all spheres of our life and changes the surrounding world and landscape. Tourism has become one of the most important factors of the economy, so we consider it not just as a trip or vacation. This concept is much broader and represents a combination of relationships and the unity of the connections and phenomena that accompany a person in travel.

Active tourism provides types of recreation and travel, entertainment, sports (hiking, rock climbing, sports games, rafting on rough rivers, underwater tourism, safaris, etc.), requiring significant physical strain [1, 2]. Often, between the concepts of active recreation and active tourism, various tourist companies put an equal sign, but these concepts are completely different: for example, if someone will be a day to row with a paddle for fun, this is an active holiday, and if in order to swim to a hard-to-reach landmark Is an active tourism. The same situation occurs with the concept of sport tourism, which is also often equated with the notion of active tourism [3,4].

The classification of active types of tourism is presented on the Figure 1.

Especially popular today are adventure and extreme tourism, which are classified into 4 leading categories:

• water kinds: diving, wakeboarding, water skiing, windsurfing, rafting and many others;
• land types: mountain biking, speleotourism, spelestology, jailao-tourism, backpacker tourism, etc.;
• mountain types of tourism: mountaineering, snowboarding, mountain (alpine) skiing, freeride, backcountry, etc.;
• air types: classical parachutism, skysurfing, paragliding with the motor, flight on air host, hanggliding, etc. (Fig. 2) [5-7].

It should be noted, that every day there are new types of tourism that are developing in different parts of the world, among them: kitewing, skimboarding, flyboarding, surfing on skis, water climbing; geocaching, volcanoboarding, industrial tourism; catskiing, snowboarding, geological and mineralogical tourism; skayaking. Each of the presented species requires a certain physical preparation from the tourist, as well as a deeply thought-out tour organization system from tourist operators and agencies [8-10].

The Republic of Kazakhstan is a unique country with huge opportunities for the development of active types of tourism: on its territory there is an amazing diversity of landscapes, climate, geographical zones, and diversity of flora and fauna species. Undoubtedly, all this gives tourists a unique opportunity for a large selection of activities: speleological tourism, hiking and mountain hiking, skiing, mountaineering, horseback riding, bicycle tourism and much more.

High rates of tourism development, large volumes of foreign exchange earnings actively influence various sectors of the economy, which contributes to the formation of its own tourism industry. It's no secret that the most important element of the tourism industry, especially in the sphere of active recreation, is the infrastructure component.

The natural landscapes of Kazakhstan are characterized by the presence of rocky-glacial highlands, mountain landscapes, small-scale massifs, forest-steppe, steppe, deserts and semi-deserts, as well as a multitude of water resources, which once again confirms the practical suitability of most of the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the development of active tourism.

Human development reports compiled under the United Nations Development Program note that health and human life expectancy by 51,2 % depend on maintaining a healthy lifestyle, 20,4 % on biological data, including on heredity, 19,9 % - from the state of the environment and 8,5 % - from the level of development of health care. Undoubtedly, in this big issue the great importance is given to the solution of environmental problems, the quality of drinking water and other subjective factors, but the main reserves are hidden in the need to create a healthy lifestyle for every citizen of our country. In this regard, the understanding that the exercise of physical culture, sports and active kinds of tourism must be firmly entrenched in the public consciousness is a necessary and most important condition for the development of a healthy nation [11]. Unfortunately, statistics show that in Kazakhstan in 2015, 26,3 % of the population systematically engaged in physical culture and sports. But the target indicator of coverage in 25 % did not reach 4 areas (SKO, WKO, Mangistau, Akmola). By the total population, the increase is insignificant, while for schoolchildren, there is a decrease in indicators. At the same time in European countries more than 50 percent of the population is involved in mass sports and active tourism.

Long-term communication with nature, active movement, the joy of informal friendly communication, the opportunity to have a good rest, to get an excellent charge of cheerfulness and tempering make hiking the best type of recreation and physical rehabilitation of the organism [12, 13]. Tourists note the unusual lightness and burst of energy after a seemingly tedious trip. The conducted studies also confirm the preventive value of occupations by active kinds of tourism (Table 1) [14].

Table 1

The preventive value of various types of tourism and recreation in strengthening the body (on a three-point scale)

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D.G. Mamrayeva

The development of active types Oftourism in Kazakhstan...

In order to organize effective work on the development of mass sports and active tourism, in almost all regions independent departments on physical culture, sports and tourism at the district level, as well as in the cities of Almaty and Astana, have been opened.

In July 2014, the first stage was launched for the creation of a bicycle infrastructure in Astana (40 bicycles with 200 bicycles) within the framework of the Memorandum of Cooperation with Samruk-Kazyna JSC and the Astana City Akimat. It should also be noted, that in September 2016 in Almaty, the ceremony of launching the Almaty Bike project was held. The first stations were installed in the central streets of the city, and 50 bike stations with a park for 270 bicycles are planned to be launched, which will help to reduce the intensity of traffic and, consequently, improve the ecology of the city. The system operates from solar panels and will be equipped with a parking terminal.

At the second stage of the project, the park is to increase the number of bicycles to 1730, and the number of bicycle stations will be 200, which in turn will cover the main business part of the city.

In the third stage of development, the number of stations will be expanded to 300, and the bike park - to 2,410 bicycles to cover almost all the busy parts of the city.

Given the city's weather conditions, it is assumed that the cycling season of the Almaty bike project will be year-round. Almaty will become the third city, whose residents «travel» on specialized bicycles. Astana citizens practice cycling for the third season and in July 2016 a project was opened in Shymkent.

Subscription fee per year for projects Almaty Bike, Astana Bike and Shymkent Bike is about $31 per year, with discounts and hourly rates.

The memorandum of cooperation was signed in June 2016 by Akim of Almaty city and JSC «National Welfare Fund «Samruk-Kazyna»» will help to develop cycling and cycling infrastructure in Almaty, promote healthy lifestyles and improve ecology, create and develop a system of automatic bike rental in the city, children's cycling and cycling in general [15].

In 2014, together with the Center for Healthy Lifestyle, about 34,000 sports, mass and tourist events and actions were held.

Important for the development of active tourism is the construction and reconstruction of sports facilities. According to the Committee on Statistics, out of 35,783 sports facilities in 2015 (which is 857 units more than in 2014), about 64 % of the country is in rural areas. In Mangistau, Aktyubinsk and North- Kazakhstan regions, the lowest number of objects of physical culture and sports is noted. More than 2100 objects are private. This is about 22 % of the objects of physical culture, sports and tourism.

In general, in Kazakhstan, 16743 youth representatives are in one swimming pool, in Russia - 8938, in the USA - 38. In Kazakhstan, there are 15799 youth representatives in one full-size football field, while in Russia - 3959, in Germany - 667.

More than 73 % of sports facilities belong to educational organizations, only 26 % of the buildings are accessible to the adult population.

The leader in the number of sports facilities is the South-Kazakhstan region - 5178 units, in the second and third places - Pavlodar and Almaty regions (3350 and 3294 units respectively). But it should be mentioned, that these regions are leading mainly due to the indicator «the number of flat sport facilities» (sports fields, skating tracks, ski and ski slopes, etc.), while on a number indicators, for example «the number of ski bases», «the number of tennis courts», are inferior to other regions of the republic. According to the number of hockey courts, the absolute leader is the North-Kazakhstan region; this is also desirable to note about the city of Almaty, on the territory of which there is a record number of tennis courts for the whole republic - 61 units, while on average there are only 47 of them.

It should be noted, that with the holding of the 7 Winter Asian Games in 2011 in Almaty, old-style springboards have been reconstructed and new ones have been built that fully meet all modern international standards.

Undoubtedly, the successful 28th World Winter Universiade in Almaty (January 29-February 8) contributed to the popularization and development of various types of active tourism.

Consider the sports facilities that were used for the competitions during the Universiade, and that will contribute to more intensive development of such types of active tourism as skiing, snowboarding, mountaineering, mountain biking, riding on rooks, ice-climbing, skiing and others (Table 2).

Kazakhstan has a large number of natural resources, suitable for the development of all types of sport tourism, including extreme tourism. On the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan there are many beautiful tourist places suitable for organizing this type of tourism, but many have not been sufficiently studied and investigated. Natural and recreational resources of Kazakhstan, as well as national traditions and peculiarities, mentality, customs have attractiveness for foreign tourists, as they are already saturated with the proposed tourist services in the markets of Europe and Asia. With the appropriate state support, it is possible to study the unexplored places of Kazakhstan's natural landscapes for creating new, interesting sports routes that are popularized by sports tourism at the world level.

Table 2

Sports objects of the Universiade - 2017

Note. Compiled by the author.

Today Kazakhstan has all the bases and resources for activating the already existing types of active tourism. In modern realities, the tourist has become more demanding on the quality and the set of services provided: it is no longer enough for a client to just give skiing, the tourist wants to get the whole range of services - quality accommodation in an accredited hotel, professional equipment, healthy food, etc. In this regard, today it is necessary to think about creating an appropriate infrastructure and to target customers of different price segments and preferences.

The population living in conditions of unfavorable ecological conditions, needs a rest in clean air, classes with active kinds of tourism.

All over the world, rock climbing is developed mainly in the low and medium mountain areas, as well as in Kazakhstan (for example, the forest ridge in the Kishi gorge). Often, climbing routes are found on the plains in the canyons washed by large rivers. Annual competition for the prize of V. Gorbunov is held in similar conditions on the river. Ile in the area of the Pisan rocks on the holiday «Nauryz». Rock-climbing is also common in the mountainous terrain (Butakovskyi Fall, rocks near the mountain climbing camp Tuiksu).

A special kind of active tourism is skyrunning. Basically skyrunning is held as a mass sporting event. In Kazakhstan, annual races are held on the peaks of Nursultan (Komsomol) and Amangeldy.

The center of water tourism in Kazakhstan is the Zhetysu Alatau (Jungar Alatau) river, among which are: Karatal, Lepsi, Kora, Tentek, and others.

The development of cycling tourism is possible in all areas of Kazakhstan, as was mentioned above.

Speleotourism is a type of active tourism, the purpose of which is to visit natural or man-made caves and labyrinths. It is interesting for a variety of forms of relief, creating obstacles for passage (wells, debris, narrow cracks, underground rivers, etc.), as well as extreme unfavorable physical conditions (high humidity and lack of natural light). In the highlands caves are found in glaciers (for example, Bogdanovich glaciers and Tuyyksu). The longest in Kazakhstan is the October cave located in the Bogdanovich glacier (length - 1390 m).

Ski tourism is popular in those regions of the country where the snow cover lasts at least 3 months. Like mountain and pedestrian, ski tourism passes along a previously prepared route and requires physical and technical training. North and East Kazakhstan are the most suitable conditions for its development [16].

Undoubtedly, that the city of Almaty is the leader among all regions in terms of the number of proposed developed routes in Kazakhstan. Its leadership is due to the presence of a large number of tourist agencies and operators, both independently developing and offering already prepared routes, as well as a rich natural landscape and a historically established strong school of tourism instructors with sports ranks of the highest class in various types of active travel (Table 3).

Table 3

Examples of active tours are offered by different companies in the context of the regions of Kazakhstan

Note. The table was compiled by the author according to official websites of tourist agencies and tourist operators, as well as the information site «Visit Kazakhstan».

The tourist products were presented in the table are far from all the offers of Kazakhstan companies. Taking into account the rich nature of the country, the availability of unique historical sites, sacred places, the list of proposed routes is diverse, and differentiated by the set of services included in the tour, client skills and cost. In each of the regions of Kazakhstan you can find a tourist offer that can satisfy the desire of even the most demanding traveler. But, nevertheless, relying on the previously given statistics, most of the country's tourist companies are working to «exit», as the flow of incoming tourists to Kazakhstan is still small. Undoubtedly, the exception is those years when the largest events of the world scale were held, among them: the Winter Asian Games in 2011, the Winter Universiade - 2017, the World Exhibition EXPO-2017.

It is also important to note one more trend: today an increasing popularity among local people is gaining weekend tours, which undoubtedly contributes to the polarization of active tourism in the regions of Kazakhstan, both among the local population and among foreign visitors.

Summing up all the above, it can be concluded that the development of tourism in Kazakhstan, encountering a number of problems, nevertheless, goes in the framework of a certain direction and scenario designed to make this type of business promising in the conditions of non-raw development of the country's economy. Today, much has been done for this purposes: adopted the Concept of development of the tourist industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan till 2023, created the national company «Kazakh tourism», amends the relevant legal instruments, a great work of the Kazakhstan Tourist Association, but, nevertheless, about the promotion of active forms of tourism too early to say, because their development needs a systematic approach, the presence of highly qualified personnel, and, above all, high-quality instructors and guides, a comprehensive work on the creation of new and modernization existing infrastructure.

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