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A delegation from the Faculty of Geography and Environmental Sciences at 91��ý Kazakh National University took part in the 15th Asia Tourism Forum (ATF 2026), held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on 11–14 June 2026 under the theme “The Asian Paradigm in Hospitality and Tourism.”

Running since 1993, the Asia Tourism Forum is one of the region's leading academic platforms in tourism and hospitality, and Mongolia hosted it for the first time this year. It was organised by Mongolia's Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism and Youth, the Ulaanbaatar City Tourism Department, the Mongolia Tourism Organization, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and the Tourism Education and Development Society. Over three days, the forum brought together more than 100 invited speakers and researchers from 22 countries, including Kazakhstan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, South Korea, China, Indonesia, Laos, the United States, Germany and Australia. The opening ceremony and plenary sessions were held in the Great Hall of the Ulaanbaatar Hotel, with discussions spanning tourism development, marketing, service management and sustainability.

KazNU was represented by a team of five led by Yeldar Nuruly, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Recreational Geography and Tourism. He was joined by four early-career researchers from the department – Amina Shyryntay, Aisulu Sembayeva, Aruzhan Serikbol and Yerkezhan Dauletkhanova. Their presentations centred on the use of digital data and spatial analysis in tourism research, ranging from visitor-pressure assessment in national parks to the potential for ecotourism in urban settings:

1. Amina Shyryntay, Research Assistant on the project, presented “Conceptualising Tourism Pressure in National Parks Through Digital Traces,” a method for assessing tourism pressure in national parks that lack visitor-monitoring systems. The paper introduces the Digital Pressure Profile, a composite indicator that brings together three dimensions of analysis – the spatial distribution of visitors, perceptions of crowding, and the ecological vulnerability of the site – drawing on digital traces such as geotags, photographs and reviews. The method is to be tested in three Tian Shan national parks: Ile-Alatau (Kazakhstan), Ala-Archa (Kyrgyzstan) and Ugam-Chatkal (Uzbekistan). The paper is co-authored with Yeldar Nuruly and Dr Faye Hao of PolyU's School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM).
2. Aisulu Sembayeva, Research Assistant on the project, presented “Digital Visibility of Tourism Activity in a Mountain National Park: A Cross-Platform UGC Analysis.” The study draws on some 86,000 digital records for Ile-Alatau National Park, including 22,000 Flickr photographs and 64,000 Google Maps reviews. The analysis found that different platforms portray tourist activity quite differently, with a spatial overlap of only about 1%. This suggests that “digital visibility” does not match the actual number of visitors and systematically overlooks the park's less accessible areas. The paper is co-authored with Yeldar Nuruly and Dr Faye Hao (PolyU).
3. Aruzhan Serikbol, a first-year master's student, presented “Smart Tourism Readiness in Protected Areas: A Tri-Pillar Assessment of Capacity Alignment,” using the Imantau-Shalkar resort zone in the North Kazakhstan Region as a case. The paper proposes assessing such readiness across three areas: connectivity and digital infrastructure, the readiness of local residents and businesses, and inter-agency coordination. Field measurements at 47 sites and a survey of 83 respondents showed that 38% of the sites lack a stable mobile signal, and that the main barrier is neither a shortage of technology nor a lack of public interest, but the absence of a coordinating body. The paper is co-authored with Yeldar Nuruly and Dr Zhannat Aliyeva, Associate Professor in the department.
4. Yerkezhan Dauletkhanova, a first-year doctoral student, presented “Potential for Ecotourism Development in the Industrial City of Oskemen (Kazakhstan).” Drawing on GIS analysis and a survey of residents, the study makes the case for urban ecotourism as a means of environmental restoration and sustainable development in industrial cities. The paper is co-authored with Aliya Aktymbayeva, Dean of the Faculty of Geography and Environmental Sciences and Professor in the department, and Dr Honggen Xiao, Assistant Dean and Professor at PolyU's School of Hotel and Tourism Management.

These topics align closely with the UN Sustainable Development Goals: responsible tourism management (SDG 12), the safeguarding of natural heritage and terrestrial ecosystems (SDG 11.4 and 15), and sustainable urban development (SDG 11).

The papers by Amina Shyryntay and Aisulu Sembayeva were prepared under the joint PolyU–KazNU project “Invisible (Shadow) Overload: Detecting Tourism Pressure through Digital Trace Analysis in Under-Instrumented Natural Landscapes of Central Asia” (P0059202), carried out at the PolyU–KazNU Centre for Sustainable Development in Central Asia. The papers by Aruzhan Serikbol and Yerkezhan Dauletkhanova were produced under the grant “Implementation of Sustainable Tourism Management in the Imantau-Shalkar Resort Area Based on the Application of Smart Technologies” (No. AP23490620) from the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The participation of Amina Shyryntay and Aruzhan Serikbol in the forum was supported by the same Centre, under its programme funding KazNU students to attend conferences of PolyU's School of Hotel and Tourism Management.

For KazNU's early-career researchers, the forum was an opportunity to present their work on a major international stage, to build contacts with colleagues from leading universities around the world, and to strengthen the partnership with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.