Current state and prospects of tourism business development in the city of Almaty

Abstract

The tourism business is growing rapidly as a tool for economic development, revenue generation and development of national and international economies. After all, tourism business allows to create jobs, increase investments and products. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the current state of tourism business development in the city of Almaty and SWOT-analysis of the main problems and prospects. In the course of the study, survey questions were developed with a review of literature included in the Scopus and WoS database, with the main conclusions drawn. The survey was conducted to determine the level of tourism business development in Almaty city, in which owners and managers of 523 enterprises voluntarily participated. In order to ensure the accuracy of the survey, the answers of 510 respondents were selected after a 3-month selection process. The analysis of the survey responses showed that 72.7% of tourism business representatives do not have special tourism education; and 32.9% do not have staff contracts. However, as positive perspectives: it is encouraging that respondents are keen to grow their businesses, keen to overcome the effects and crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that 29% of respondents are young entrepreneurs. In addition, as a result of SWOT-analysis, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks of tourism business development in Almaty became known. Thus, this study helps to identify a promising direction for future research, being an auxiliary tool in solving problems that hinder the development of tourism infrastructure in Almaty, improvement of service provision, sustainable development of tourism business.