Citizens of Kazakhstan ranked first by the number of tourists visiting Uzbekistan last year, Kun.uz correspondent reports citing data from the State Tourism Committee.

In total, 2,293,077 Kazakh citizens visited Uzbekistan in 2018.

In terms of the number of tourists, the second place was taken by Tajikistan (1,095,505 travellers) and the third with a slight lag by Kyrgyzstan (1,055,688). A total of 5,020,392 people came from the CIS countries to Uzbekistan in 2018.

It should be noted that mostly, these people come to our country not for tourism purposes, but to visit relatives or for business. Nevertheless, this counting methodology is considered to be correct, since it is based on the recommendations of the UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organization). In accordance with the UNWTO, tourists are those persons who come to a country not for the purpose of earning money and who spend at least one night at their place of arrival. Now this methodology is used by 167 states.

As for far foreign countries, Turkey ranked first with 41,299 tourists, the second and third – China (32,444) and South Korea (27,269) respectively.

According to the data from the State Committee for Tourism, on average, one tourist from Turkmenistan leaves our country spending $104 and Tajikistan – about $60. A tourist from far abroad spends about $710.