Kazakhstan Looks to Develop its Skiing
20th April 2025
Last modified on May 16th, 2025
The government wants to expand its ski offerings around Almaty with a focus on attracting foreign skiers and snowboarders. Skiing in Asia is on the rise.
The Prime Minister, Olzhas Bektenov, has met with PGI Management President, Joan Viladomat, to explore avenues of cooperation to develop ski tourism in Kazakhstan.
The government want to use snowsports to expand international tourism and boost economic growth.
The Almaty mountain cluster resorts sees around two million visitors per year and supports 2,000 seasonal jobs.
PGI Management has completed over 120 projects worldwide including ski development in Davos and St. Moritz in Switzerland, Courchevel in France, Ischgl in Austria, Vail and Aspen in the USA, Whistler-Blackcomb in Canada, and resorts in Andorra.
The plans are to develop the area in Kazakhstan into a world-class, year-round tourism destination.
See more in The Astana Times.
In an interview with The Astana Times, Deputy Minister of Tourism and Sports Yerzhan Yerkinbayev said the development of the mountain cluster in Almaty was a top priority for 2025.
Its existing infrastructure, comprising 41kms of ski runs and 16 lifts, offers a daily capacity of 6,000 people.
Asia is the fastest growing ski market in the world, as we have reported earlier on PlanetSKI:
Last year PlanetSKI was skiing in Turkey to see what it offered:
Skiing in Turkey. Image © PlanetSKI
This season PlanetSKI spent more than 5 weeks in Japan:
Hokkaido, Japan. Image © PlanetSKI
Epanding the infrastructure in the Almaty area in Kazakhstan to 227kms of ski trails and 58 lifts is predicted to increase the cluster’s daily capacity by 5.6 times to 34,000 skiers and snowboarders.
These upgrades are claimed to generate 10,000 direct jobs and enable the Almaty mountain cluster to host up to 7.5 million tourists annually by 2029.
Related Articles
PlanetSKI: Number 1 for digital ski news.
Your digital platform for ski news, resort information, travel, equipment rental, sport, money saving deals and everything connected with snowsports – web site, social media & more.
