Uzbekistan and the World Bank are working on furthering cooperation in tourism and hospitality industries.
State Property Committee of Uzbekistan held a meeting with World Bank officials led by Mr. Takuya Kamata, head of WB resident mission in Uzbekistan.
Today the tourist industry of Uzbekistan is one of the most promising ‘growth points’ of the economy, given the strong potential of the country’s historical heritage, world-famous city sights and resorts. At the same time the development of the industry entails the development of a wide range of other areas – hotels, sightseeing, transportation, handicrafts, stimulate job creation, improvement of infrastructure at the sites of historical and architectural monuments. In this regard, now Uzbekistan is actively working on a development strategy for tourism.
Experts stress that the government is interested in enhancing the role of the private sector in tourism too. The priority here is given to attraction of private direct investment, both foreign and local, within the privatization and public-private partnership in implementation of various socially-oriented infrastructure projects.
Another important aspect in the development of the tourism industry is the infrastructure of services meeting world standards and willing to offer tourists not only the highest quality and professionalism, but also the uniqueness and individuality of service. As shown by recent trends in world tourism markets, it is becoming more personalized, segmented and narrow-directed. This has increased the level of tourism culture, stimulated the worldwide development of the service sector. Uzbekistan is adequately meets the needs of the time. In the last few years the country has built dozens of large and medium size hotels, small private hotels. Hotels in Tashkent, Samarqand, Urganch, Shahrisabz and other cities have undergone major reconstruction. Significantly, most of them introduced new standards that enabled them to flexibly respond to market changes and to adequately respond to all customer demands.
Following the meeting the partners agreed that in the nearest time Uzbekturizm will host a meeting with representatives of the World Bank to determine the range of issues on which they could work together. (Source: UT News Agency)