KYRGYZSTAN EYES PEOPLE-CENTERED TOURISM
For Immediate Release Source: Counterpart International
Contact: Kyla Springer, + 1 202 296-9676
kyla@counterpart.org
KYRGYZSTAN EYES PEOPLE-CENTERED TOURISM
Photograph available at:
www.mediaexchange.info/tmp/kyrgyz_mountains.jpg
CAPTION: Kyrgyzstan offers tourists beautiful cities, panoramic vistas and a welcoming people.
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (May 29, 2006) – One of the world’s largest and fastest growing industries has been targeted by the government of this alluring alpine Central Asian nation as a development priority for providing livelihoods for local people and their communities.
The Bishkek government is also looking at ways of ensuring tourism develops in a way which enhances the incomes, health, environment and culture of destinations in Kyrgyzstan which lies between China and Uzbekistan on the ancient Silk Road network.
Cradled by the soaring, snow-capped peaks of the magnificent Tien Shan range, second only to Mount Everest and the Himalayas, Kyrgyzstan is blessed with deep, pure lakes and verdant valleys of the storied Silk Road and a people known for their friendliness. The Central Asian nation is ready to invite the world into its land which up to now has been known mainly by adventurers and extreme sports devotees.
An international development agency, Counterpart International, which has been delivering humanitarian assistance and helping strengthen civil society in the country for over a decade, is discussing with officials and other partners ways and means of ensuring the people of Kyrgyzstan gain maximum benefit from an influx of foreign visitors.
“We are encouraged by the determination of the government policy makers to ensure tourism can work for the benefit of the people and environment of this beautiful country,” said Lelei LeLaulu, head of Counterpart International at the opening of the country’s first International Tourism Fair in Bishkek this month.
Talking to reporters after his meetings with senior government officials, LeLaulu noted that Kurmanbek T. Temirbaev, head of the Kyrgyzstan Presidential Administrative Office, welcomed sustainable tourism development with “open hands and hearts”. The senior official also agreed on the need to “ensure tourism was developed at a pace which allowed the Kyrgyz people to gain maximum benefit from the visitor influx,” he added.
One way to encourage productive solutions between the stakeholders in this sector listed by the Kyrgyz government as its top development priority, asserted LeLaulu, is to stimulate dialogue between developers, hotels, airlines, government officials, civil society organizations and media representatives.
A model under consideration is the highly-successful media exchange on sustainable tourism launched five years ago in the Caribbean region by Counterpart. “We have been told by government tourism officials that the quality and quantity of media coverage of sustainable tourism development has increased markedly since we started CMEx (the Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism). There is no doubt that once the media understands the importance of sustainable tourism, the lessons are passed through to the communities and other stakeholders,” added LeLaulu, who notes that Government leaders are keen to see how such media exchanges on sustainable tourism can be applied to Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia.
Counterpart, a Washington DC-based NGO, has delivered more than US $700 million in humanitarian assistance and civil society development guidance in Central Asia since it began operating in the region over ten years ago with funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US State Department, the World Bank, United Nations, DFID in the UK, and many private sector supporters in Europe and the United States.
Recently USAID awarded Counterpart a contract to develop community-based tourism that incorporates archeology and income generation from high-value niche crops in Central America.
Counterpart also partners with the National Geographic Society and George Washington University to work with the government of Honduras, which is expanding its tourism capacity by concentrating on attracting tourists from the scientific, academic, volunteerism and education communities.
In Brazil, Counterpart takes young people at risk from the slums and trains them for jobs in the tourism industry. The highly successful program is funded by USAID and slated for nationwide replication by President Lula da Silva of Brazil.
“USAID must be commended for recognizing the huge potential of sustainable tourism as a potent development tool,” said LeLaulu, a founding director of the World Tourism Forum for Peace and Sustainable Development (launched by President Lula) and a member of the advisory council of the International Council of Tourism Partners.
Formed 41 years ago in the South Pacific, Counterpart International, a leading NGO partner of the UN World Tourism Organization, has programs in all five Central Asian countries as well as in Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. With partners and affiliates it has programs in more than 60 countries.
ENDS