PATA Travel Mart, which is headed for Kazakhstan this year, may have to tweak its marketing to reflect an official change in the name of its host city.
Kazakhstan has renamed its capital Astana to Nursultan to honour the nation’s outgoing leader and only president since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Nursultan Nazarbayev unexpectedly resigned on Tuesday, and was within 24 hours succeeded by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who proposed the change in name of the capital city, before parliament adopted a law making it official.
“We are still waiting for information from our host on how we should refer to the city moving forward before we change references in our marketing material,” PATA CEO Mario Hardy told TTG Asia.
The happenings in Kazakhstan will only affect PATA Travel Mart when it comes to how the trade show is marketed.
Beyond that, “it may make people want to visit the new city even more” as the historic events in Kazakhstan are likely to stir curiosity worldwide.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan’s national flag carrier, Air Astana, stated it plans to stick to its current brand name.
Astana, which means “capital” in Kazakh, became the capital of Kazakhstan in 1997, taking over from Almaty, still the country’s commercial hub and largest population centre.
