Der Ausländertourismus in Afghanistan bis 1979.

Entwicklung, Struktur und räumliche Problematik

Abstract

It was only from the mid-sixties that Afghanistan attracted increasing numbers of foreigners and was thus integrated into international tourism for more than one decade. Visitors from Pakistan and, during the most recent years, from India formed the main group. Among western tourists there were two distinct groups:1. well-to-do visitors mainly arriving by air and being to a great extent package tourists, 2. young people travelling overland to or from India and Nepal. In general most foreign tourists visited Afghanistan only on transit, not as their main destination. Popular tourist attractions were, apart from Kabul and other towns, places of art-historical or archaeological interest such as Bamyan, Jam, Hadda, Surkh Kotal etc. or of natural beauty such as the lakes of Band-i-Amir. Tourist accommodation was concentrated in the main towns and in Bamyan (fig.1); the high attractivity of Bamyan was proved by the number of nights spent there by tourists on ATO package tours (fig.2). A survey performed in 19 hotels in Kabul in 1978/79 revealed structure, motives and preferences (for sightseeing and shopping) of 734 foreign tourists shortly before tourism was cut-off by political events. The communist government, which came into power on 27th April 1978, continued to promote international tourism which recovered within a few months after the coup. However, the increasing civil war and, finally, the Soviet occupation in December 1979 put an end to tourism in Afghanistan.