Institutional influences on national tourism-related foreign direct investment (TFDI) policies and programmes: Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia

This chapter critically examines tourism-related foreign direct investment (TFDI) in the context of Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia through an evolutionary lens. The development path of a particular TFDI is explored and consideration is given to how this might inform wider understanding of sustainable tourism development, particularly in a post-Soviet Central Asia context. It is important to reflect on how the application of an evolutionary approach to explore the path of a TFDI over time might inform wider understanding of tourism development. Issues of governance, political stability, and institutional capacities are highlighted as being highly influential for the TFDI’s development trajectory alongside collaboration and negotiation processes. This observation might inform wider understanding of tourism development by reinforcing Slocum and Backman’s (2011) identification of the importance of ‘good’ governance in achieving sustainability objectives alongside relationship skills. The chapter demonstrates the scope to gain insights into both host government investment economy and foreign investor behaviours and actions over a sustained time-period. This is important in terms of being able to “question the nature of that evolution with, for example, growth-oriented models often challenged as unsustainable in tourism” (Brouder and Eriksson, 2016:384).