Tourists Favor Visa-Free Regime

“Kir-gis-tan?? Where is it?” this is often the reaction I receive when I tell some of my friends that I would be going to Kyrgyzstan for a holiday.

To be honest, even I did not consider visiting Kyrgyzstan when I was drafting my four-month overland Silk Road travel plan, not until I found out that as a Malaysian, I do not need a visa to enter the country.

The visa-free regime is a great incentive, as it is well known to travelers that Central Asian countries are “difficult” in visa issuance, not only the cost is high – running to over one hundred US dollar in some cases – the procedures are often tedious, such as needing a visa support document (invitation letter) and taking a long time to process (sometimes up to 14 days for Uzbekistan visa).

My initial plan was to journey from China into Tajikistan and then over to Uzbekistan, the later is where I truly wanted to be, as I have been craving for the famed Samarkand for a long time. The visa fees for the two countries would have added up to over two hundred US dollars, but if I used Kyrgyzstan instead of Tajikistan as a transit ground, the cost would be halved.

A transit ground – that was my initial thought for Kyrgyzstan before I researched further into what the country has to offer. However, upon learning what wonders the country holds now I want to stay the full 30 days allowed under the visa-free arrangement between Malaysia and Kyrgyzstan.

Visa-free regime does make a difference to tourists’ choice of destination. Over the past decade as I journeyed through Asia, Europe, and the America, I have met numerous tourists who gave up the plan of visiting certain countries, or changed their travel routes simply because of the visa barrier.

Some who in a spur of a moment decide to give themselves a break or a treat, and go for a hastily planned holiday, they would often opt for a destination that requires no visa to save time, fearing that tedious visa procedure may deflate their enthusiasm.

Kyrgyzstan, perhaps less famous then its neighbor in terms of historical sites or less popular on the global tourism map, could use its visa-free regime as a competitive edge to draw tourists, who would discover what a beautiful land this is upon visiting, and realize it is no less attractive than its more well known neighbors.

However, I learned that Kyrgyzstan’s visa-free arrangement is only enjoyed by 16 countries, amongst them only two are developed nations – South Korea and Japan – which “export” many tourists to all four corners of the world every year.

On the other hand, most of the western countries, who account for a large chunk of global tourism market, are on the list of 45 countries that can enter on simplified visa terms– meaning a waiver of invitation letter. Travelers from these 45 countries may also get a visa on arrival upon landing at the Manas airport in Bishkek. 

In most countries, tourist visa requirement is applied as a control measure, usually to prevent migrants seeking illegal employments or asylum seekers to enter under the guise of tourists, and also to screen for criminals and terrorists.

But the simplified procedure of visa on arrival, which Kyrgyzstan is now offering, does not deliver the proper screening required to prevent the above abuses, so why not abolish the visa requirement and use that as a booster for tourism industry?

My home country, Malaysia, has in recent years liberated its visa requirement. It now offers visa free arrangement to some 80 countries for varying duration of stay and combined it with aggressive tourism promotional campaigns. The number of tourist arrival in 2009 has tripled compared to 10 years ago, and tourism earning has jumped 300% over the same period.

Though visa-free regime does not necessarily guarantee a thriving tourism industry, but strict visa requirement is definitely a hindrance to tourist flow. In the globalized era, many countries and international institutions are calling for freer trade and the abolition of various trade barriers, but few seem to take the tourism trade into account, what about the visa barrier for a hot commodity called tourist? By abolishing visa requirement, Kyrgyzstan would gain more from this commodity.

Lam Li

Exclusively for the Central Asian Free Market Institute