The China-Kazakhstan Tourism Year will have witnessed a surge in leisure travel between the two nations when it closes in Astana, the Kazakh capital, on Friday.

Statistics from China National Tourism Administration show Kazakhs made 109,600 trips to China in the first half of 2017, up by 12.7 percent on the same period last year.

Industry experts say China was late in starting leisure travel cooperation with Kazakhstan compared with other destinations.

The big Central Asian neighbor only announced it would start accepting Chinese tour groups in July last year

Since the start of the tourism year campaign in Almaty in April, a slew of tourism cooperation agreements have been signed between Kazakhstan and Chinese provincial areas, including Heilongjiang, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Shanghai and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Among Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan is China's largest source of tourists.

The China National Tourism Administration has announced it will set up an office in Kazakhstan, with operations expected to start soon.