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IMPACTS OF CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC ON TOURISM OF CENTRAL
ASIA
Ulmasova Bahora Asrorovna
MA student of Silk Road International
University of Tourism and Cultural Heritage
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14059979
1.Abstract
5 Central Asian (CA) countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan) are one of the most developing states in tourism
sector for attracting many tourists with its rich history and culture. During the
period 2020 to 2022 tourism industry of these nations highly damaged by
COVID-19 and it showed its negative impacts on Gross Domestic Products (GDP),
social life, industries and other sectors of life in countries all over the world. This
research takes the first step in exploring the impact of COVID-19 on tourist
arrivals, tourism imports, GDP of CA countries, and it also analyzes a comparison
between pre-pandemic and post Covid-19 conditions of tourism industry, and
we use latest data and statistics for clarification it, as well. This study utilized
only secondary data and it has been collected by previous studies and literature
reviews. Several pieces of research and thesis papers, government documents
used for collecting essential information for study.
Key words:
GDP, tourist arrivals, tourism industry, pre-pandemic, post COVID-
19 conditions, literature review.
2. Introduction
The COVID-19 brought unparalleled effects to tourism industry of the globe.
Central Asia attracts many tourists with its rich history and a culture around the
world as other continents in the field of business. In 2019, total number of
tourist arrivals both Europe and Central Asia was around 1.2 billion. As a
consequence of spreading unexpected virus around the world, all the states
temporarily closed their borders, and it caused to drop total amount of GDP in
the Globe, job places, tourism, hotel industries, social life and every field of life of
individuals. Both domestic and international travelers cancelled their trips
during Coronavirus pandemic. Many hotels and restaurants faced challenges and
some of them bankrupted by the COVID-19. Due to the pandemic outbreak the
total number of world tourism industry decreased by 80 % (UNWTO, 2020a). It
also showed its negative effects on tourism of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, because these countries loss many
job opportunities, closed their borders, both inbound and outbound tourism
almost stopped temporary until the beginning of 2021.
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2.1 Objectives of the research
The tourism industry is seen to be entering into a great crisis in all sectors.
Central Asian countries’ industries are one of the affected and almost all of the
states did not make a profit by tourism from 2020 to 2022. The hotels, export
and imports, airlines, companies’ operations were stopped. The objectives of
study are followings:
1.
To analyze the impacts of pandemic on tourism industry in evidence of
Central Asian countries and its place in global GDP.
2.
To investigate previous studies about COVID-19.
3.
To examine tourist flows before, during and after pandemic in 5 states.
4.
To explore statistics based on Gross Domestic Products of Central Asia.
5.
To discuss study findings, conclusions and give recommendations.
2.2 Literature review
There is different type of Literature available in a term of coronavirus’s impacts
on tourism. The main discussions of these studies are about socio-economic
effects of pandemic in the world, how will tourism change in the near future and
etc. Some articles discuss the risk perceptions of tourists and travel intentions
during the period of pandemic. In this Literature review we consider that
previous studies of researchers which is based on tourism and pandemic.
Risk perception
is connected with the situation which is deal with consuming a
tourism product service or making a travel decision (Reisinger, Mavondo, 2005).
Travelers sometimes can expose to risk their health while choosing an unknown
trip destination. 3 years ago, coronavirus pandemic highly damaged more than
210 countries’ tourism industry, however it helped to make the safety of
international travel in all over the world (Turnsek et al.,2020).
3. Data and methodology
In this part of research, we investigate data collections and used methodology of
the paper. And all the collecting information deal with global tourism industry,
condition of Central Asia (CA) during the period of pandemic, and also it
compares pre-pandemic and post-COVID-19 conditions in evidence of 5
countries.
3.1 Data collection
Tourism sector plays a crucial role among the countries in a worldwide and total
amount of travel and tourism trade contained 10 trillion US dollars in 2019
before the pandemic and it was equal to 10.4% of Global Gross Domestic
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Products. However, it was 7.7 trillion US$ in 2022 after the coronavirus and it
represented 7.6% of global GDP. Central Asian countries is one of the most
developing nations in the field of tourism and it is known all over the world as a
part of Great Silk Road. There are 5 countries and they are Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. All of the CA countries’
tourism industry was fastest-growing sector in 2019 before the coronavirus
pandemic. Central Asian nations’ GDP growth was 6.6% in 2019, which was
dropped to 2,9% in 2020. According to the Eurasian Development Bank total
number of GDP in Central Asia was $291 Billion in 2020. The most developed
country among the CA counties is Kazakhstan. Unexpected virus showed it
negative impacts in a worldwide. Before the pandemic, in 2019, 1.2 billion
international tourist arrivals visited in Central Asia and Europe.
In this table, indicators compared among the countries in 2019. The country
which is more tourist visited is Kazakhstan with 8.6 million. And Uzbekistan
welcomed 6,748,500 international tourists at the same year. There is no data
available on government websites about GDP, tourist arrivals and employment
rate of Turkmenistan. A year before pandemic, Tajikistan showed the best result
on tourism exports with 28.4% among 5 nations. And other states such as,
Kazakhstan 4,1%, Uzbekistan 21.1% and Kyrgyzstan 18.6% performed in
tourism exports. The higher employment in the field of tourism rate was in
Kyrgyzstan and it was equal to 8.5%. In the second place was Tajikistan with
6.6% employment rate, while Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan faced some
challenges.
In this following data, we investigate how pandemic effects on tourist flow of CA
nations.
Uzbekistan: Kyrgyzstan: Kazakhstan: Tajikistan:
Turkmenistan:
2018 – 5,346,200; 7 million 8.79 million 1,035,000 N/A
2019 – 6,748,500; 8,508,000 8,515,000 1,257,300 N/A
2020 – 1,420,300; 69 thousand 2,035,000 350,000 N/A
2022 – 5,200,000; 1,970,900 3.4 million 431,000 N/A
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Uzbekistan welcomed 6.5 million visitors in 2019, and it was dropped by 1,5
million in 2020. 8,515,000 travelers visited in Kazakhstan in 2019, and
2,035,000 tourists came during the pandemic period. At the same time, in
Kyrgyzstan tourist arrivals represented as 8.5 million, however this statistic
changed into 69000 tourists flow in 2020. Tajikistan is also welcomed
approximately 1.3 million visitors before pandemic and 350,000 people visited
in 2020. During the period of coronavirus pandemic many hotels, companies,
and industries paused their job, due to it they loss many job places and some of
them faced to bankrupt, as well. In addition to it, 6.2% of total GDP of
Kazakhstan is belong to tourism sector. And it is equal to 5% of GDP in
Kyrgyzstan, 3.4% of GDP in Uzbekistan, and 1% of GDP in Tajikistan. It is
necessary to highlight that, these countries tourism sector was at a high level
before pandemic, due to the many cancellation and closing of borders they came
across many challenges during pandemic, however governments try to recover
step by step after COVID-19.
3.2 Methodology
In this review we used only secondary data for describing some differences and
gather literature reviews. For collecting data, we used some websites such as
Google scholar, Research Gate, journal articles, previous studies which done by
scholars, and reports taken from UNWTO ,2020; the World Bank and others for
analyzing negative impacts of COVID-19 on 5 nation’s travel sectors.
4. Result/Key Findings
COVID-19 effected to the Global tourism unreliable level. Total GDP of Global
industry was dropped sharply. Due to the pandemic in Kazakhstan
unemployment rate increased from 0.2% to 5%. Tajikistan’s GDP dropped to
1.6% in during 2020. Besides that, there is no any data and reports about
impacts of COVID-19 on tourism industry of Turkmenistan, but government
should attract more tourists for country’s development. In 2020, during the 8
months Uzbekistan’s unemployment rate increased from 9.4% to almost 15%. If
all countries attract more tourists nowadays, they can make a more profit form
this business, and it tends to development.
5.Conclusion/Policy implications
In conclusion, around the central Asian countries both inbound and outbound
tourism types stopped for the moment. This study gives more detailed
information about how tourism was in the period of coronavirus pandemic and
it helps to focus on to increase tourists number in all countries. Besides that,
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government should inspect risk perceptions of tourists during difficult
situations and they have to focus on tourists’ health, as well. The second
recommendation for Central Asian countries is to attract many tourists, and
develop both domestic and international tourism at a level of perfection.
References:
1.
Aljazeera, “China coronavirus outbreak: All the latest updates,”
Aljazeera.com,
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Harchandani, P., & Shome, S. (2021). Global tourism and COVID-19: An
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Davies, R. " How coronavirus is affecting the global economy", the
Guardian,
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/05/coronavirus-global-
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https://wttc.org/Research/Economic-Impact
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