Borat Boosts Tourism In Kazakhstan

Kenzhebay Satzhanov, deputy chairman in Kazakhstan's tourism and sports ministry, said the boost to tourism in Kazakhstan is due to British comic Sacha Baron Cohen's character, Borat, and not important social reforms like, "women now permitted to travel on inside of bus" and "homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats." Although initially angered by the movie, the country has seen a 13% increase in tourism after the film. "The first glance was not of course positive, it cannot be because you see a lot of not so good things, but then, after that, when we start seeing interest in our country, it was of course reflected better, it was positive. People, after looking at this film, they will like to come and see: 'is it real, is it the same or not?' It helps to learn more about our country," said Satzhanov.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Narcogen]

Good grief, please tell me you don't walk into shops yelling that.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be an American.

Borat != Kazakhstan.

[f1vlad]

Surprises me to this day how little Borat has to do with actual country of Kazakhstan and how much with country of Romania. Start with his looks. They should have started at making him asian to resemble a native Kazakh.

Re:

[xs650]

It wasn't supposed to be a documentary.

Re:

[f1vlad]

I realise that. Just picture a movie about, say China, and martial arts. Wouldn't you expect people to be asian? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan [wikipedia.org] Either way, watch Terminal instead, much better movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362227/).

Re:

[Slashdot Parent]

They should have started at making him asian to resemble a native Kazakh.

Who is "they"?

The Borat character is from Sacha's comedy schtick. It's not like the producers could just substitute someone else in his place--no one would have watched the movie.

The movie wasn't about Kazakhstan, it was about Sacha's character.

hehe

[gd23ka]

"Satzhanov said Borat had still not taken up his invite to visit Kazakhstan."

Hehe.. I haven't been to Iran either after calling their "Supreme Leader" names. I'm sure they would send me a cordial invitation to tour the country along with a plane ticket if I told them it was me :-)