Kazakhstan's ski slopes and mountain resorts are no longer just for holidaymakers. In the first half of 2026, resort areas across the country welcomed 510,800 visitors travelling for business and professional purposes, and nearly four in five of them headed to one place: the Almaty Mountain Cluster, which accounted for 77.3% of the total, according to an analysis by Ranking.kz.
The numbers point to a country quietly building a serious MICE sector — meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions. Kazakhstan hosted 13 major international MICE events in 2025, generating close to $18 million in revenue, a 20% jump on the previous year. Almaty alone pulled in roughly $3 million from international events in 2025.
What's happening in the mountains is arguably more interesting for travellers. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of business guests staying in hotels in the Almaty Mountain Cluster grew 2.5 times, and in 2025 the area's hotels hosted 925,700 business and professional visitors — up 7.1% on 2024. Across all of Kazakhstan's resort areas, nearly one in four hotel and recreation guests in recent years has been travelling for work.
The spending data suggests these trips are changing shape. Foreign business visitors in the first half of 2026 spent 5.4% more than a year earlier, but the fastest growth wasn't on accommodation (up 9.7%) or food (up 7.7%). It was on culture, up 24.1%, and recreation and sport, up 22.2%, with medical and wellness services up 13%. In other words, people are tacking hiking, museums, spas and ski days onto their work trips — the classic bleisure pattern, now firmly established in Central Asia.
Accommodation providers in resort areas earned 91.2 billion tenge (about $202 million) in the first half of 2026, so the sector has real money riding on this trend. Kazakhstani travellers make up 64% of resort-area business visitors, with foreigners at 36% — a sign that domestic corporate retreats and conferences are driving much of the growth, while international arrivals are rising too.
For travellers, this matters in practical ways. More corporate demand means more hotel investment, better conference facilities and busier slopes around Almaty — particularly at resorts like Shymbulak in the Trans-Ili Alatau, an easy trip from the city. If you've been considering Kazakhstan for a trip that mixes city culture with mountain time, the infrastructure to support it is being built right now. Just book mountain hotels early: they're increasingly full of people attending conferences who've decided to stay for the weekend.
