Abstract
The paper focuses on how tourism contributes to the formation of economic development and geopolitical relationships between the states of Central Asia, specifically, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Despite the historical, cultural and geographical connections that are strong in this region, particularly through the story of the Silk Road, tourism remains an unbalanced part of the regional agenda of development and integration. The research aims at observing how various actors view the economic and geopolitical potential tourism holds and to what level tourism helps in regional cooperation and state positioning. The study relies on the qualitative and comparative research methodology. Data was collected by use of 120 semi-structured interviews with the representatives of the common sector, academia and the tourism industry in major urban and cross-border destination. The analysis of data was conducted in NVivo 14 software with the application of the thematic and comparative and matrix codes. According to the findings, tourism, in the majority of case s, is viewed as a tool of local economic growth and enhancing the resiliency of local communities, and its geopolitical and integrative capabilities are under-explored. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are unique because they have a more advanced institutional support level, infrastructural preparedness, and strategic orientation as it allows tourism to be a source of s oft power and regional presence. Conversely, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are administratively weak and their institutions have a low capacity of collaboration across borders. The paper will add to the literature on tourism and regional development by highlighting the importance of regional structures and mechanisms of joint governance to ensure the validation of tourism as an aspect of long-term stability and collaboration in Central Asia, particularly in contexts where shared narratives such as the Silk Road remain insufficiently translated into concrete policy.