Mongolia’s tourism push plays up open spaces and adventures such as reindeer sleigh rides

Welcome to MonGOlia tourism campaign aims to woo visitors with country’s wide-open landscapes, nomadic culture, and scope for adventure

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Mongolia, famous for Genghis Khan, the steppes and its hunting eagles (above) is trying to attract a million tourists a year with its Welcome to MonGOlia campaign. Photo: AP

Published: 4:15pm, 20 Aug 2024

With its reindeer sleigh rides, camel racing and stunning landscapes with room to roam, Mongolia is hoping to woo visitors who are truly looking to get away from it all.

Like most countries, its tourism industry was devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic, and it has launched a “Welcome to MonGOlia” campaign to win people back. The government has added flights and streamlined the visa process, offering visa-free visits for many countries.

At least 437,000 foreign tourists visited in the first seven months of this year, up 25 per cent over the same period last year, including increasing numbers from Europe, the United States and Japan. Visitors from South Korea nearly doubled.

Despite the gains, Mongolia’s government is still short of its goal of a million visitors per year from 2023 to 2025.

Gers for tourists at the base of a rock outcrop in Terelj National Park, outside Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Photo: AP

With a population of 3.3 million people, about half of them living in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, there’s plenty of open space for the adventure tourist to explore, said Egjimaa Battsooj, who works for a tour company.