Postcard from Bishkek

The Saturday postcards are normally a review of the previous weeks news, and gets sent out to a variety of people as an email.  It is a purely personal take on the news, as seen from my perspective as: an Englishman living here in Kyrgyzstan for over 16 years; an former teacher (of Religious Studies, […]

There is a saying that examiners have a habit of asking the wrong questions.  They always seem to ask questions that catch the student out … I was sitting a Geography exam once, and was completely thrown.  I really prepared well for the exam.  I had noticed that the first question on the Physical Geography […]

Over the years that I have been in Kyrgyzstan, people have asked me a lot of questions.  Some of them have been easy to answer, but others have been more difficult. When I first came to Bishkek I was asked a lot of questions about why I had come here, my life back in the […]

THEY SHOULD ALSO KNOW THAT … the tourist industry in Kyrgyzstan is still “open for business” and is both “ready and willing” to welcome visitors.

Is that Good News – or Bad News? – THE KEY WORD IS “RECOVERY” The world is beginning to hear about the Kyrgyz Republic . Articles are appearing in foreign newspapers and on foreign TV News programmes, not to mention on the “information superhighway” – the internet.

This was written in 2006 because there were many people who worked in Tourism in Kyrgyzstan who felt that we didn’t need a Tourism Promotion Board … they argued that the same task had been fulfilled for many years by another of the Associations – The Kyrgyz Association of Tour Operators (KATO).  I was asked, […]

I am a British citizen, currently living and working in Bishkek, the capital of the Kyrgyz Republic, where I am the Director of two companies: one is a tour company and the other operates a hotel. At the end of 2005, I was elected President of the Kyrgyz Association of Tour Operators.

The Kyrgyz Association of Tour Operators (KATO) is the largest organization representing Tour Operators in Kyrgyzstan.  It was formally established in 1997, having operated on an informal basis since 1993.  (The Celestial Mountains Tour Company was on of the “initiators” when the Association officially registered its charter.)

In my role as President of the Kyrgyz Association of Tour Operators, I was asked to address a “Round Table” called to discuss the Bologna Declaration, its implications and its importance in the sphere of Tourism.