Аннотация
This scientific article presents a quantitative assessment of the regional efficiency of Kazakhstan’s creative industries in the context of their contribution to tourism performance. The study aims to identify spatial differentiation in efficiency and determine the structural parameters for transforming the resource potential of the creative sector into the socio economic effects of tourism development. The methodological architecture of the study was implemented using the Python programming language and the RStudio analytical environment; it is based on the comprehensive application of the principal component analysis (PCA) method for reducing multidimensional feature space and nonparametric analysis of generalized efficiency boundaries in the data envelopment analysis-variational return to scale (DEA-VRS) specification. The resulting system of input and output indicators reflects the institutional, investment, infrastructure, and outcome parameters of the functioning of regional creative tourism systems. The assessments obtained as a result of the analysis revealed pronounced interregional heterogeneity and showed that the potential for growth in tourism performance is mainly associated with increasing the efficiency of the use of the already formed resource base. The practical significance of the results is determined by the possibility of their application in the formation of priorities for regional policy for the development of the creative economy and tourism. Keywords: creative industries of Kazakhstan, economic efficiency, regional efficiency, DEA modeling, principal component analysis (PCA), scale of returns (VRS), econometric modeling, tourism in Kazakhstan.