The «Digital Silk Road – 2025» forum took place in Astana
Kazakhstan’s tour operators have been given the opportunity to strengthen their presence in the Chinese market. Issues of digital integration and promotion were discussed during the «Digital Silk Road – 2025» forum. The event brought together leading experts, tour operators, representatives of the hospitality industry, as well as technology companies from both countries. The main goal was to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of tourism and to find new solutions for the development of the industry amid digital transformation.
Particular attention of the forum participants was drawn to the development of digital partnership in the tourism sector between the two countries. In June of this year, Kazakh Tourism signed a memorandum of cooperation with one of China’s major digital tourism platforms – Zowoyoo – to promote Kazakhstan’s tourism potential in the Chinese market. This will allow Kazakhstani tour operators, hotels, and tourism facilities to place their services on the platform and social media such as Douyin (Chinese TikTok), Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), and others.
«In China, the social networks and international booking systems we are used to are not in use, so to effectively promote Kazakhstan, we need partners like Zowoyoo – with local knowledge and access to the audience. They help adapt Kazakhstani tourism products and hotel services into the Chinese language and into formats that are understandable for local users. Zowoyooinvests its own funds in the integration of Kazakhstan’s offers into Chinese platforms and social networks. The state does not spend a single tenge on this. The beneficiaries of this opportunity are Kazakhstani tour operators and hotels, who will gain direct access to the Chinese market and receive actual requests from tourists from China», -noted Daniyel Serzhanuly, Acting Chairman of the Management Board of Kazakh Tourism.
According to data for the first half of 2025, Kazakhstan has already been visited by about 260,000 guests from China. The use of digital platforms such as Zowoyoo is expected to increase the number of tourists due to convenient online booking and personalized content.
«Videos about Kazakhstan have gained more than 5 billion views on Chinese digital platforms. This is a very good result. We aim to attract about 1 million tourists to Kazakhstan annually and generate travel-related revenue of up to 2–3 billion US dollars. Our goal is to use technology to make travel to Kazakhstan as convenient as possible for the Chinese audience»,-said Zowoyoorepresentative Fu Xuejia.
It is worth noting that this year, Zowoyoo opened its first office in Central Asia – in the city of Almaty. This event marked an important step in deepening cooperation in the adaptation and distribution of tourism content in Chinese.
