About 1.9m foreigners visit Uzbekistan in 2012

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- About 1.9 million foreign citizens, including 517,000 tourists, paid a visit to Uzbekistan in 2012, deputy chairperson of Uzbektourism Anvar Temurkhodjaev said quoting official statistics.

Anvar Temurkhodjaev said that the growth of tourism services in Uzbekistan reached 38.9%, service to tourists – 17.5% and service exports – 15.1%.

Experts note that historic programmes, which include familiarization with historic heritage, traditions and culture of Uzbek people, as well as nature, attract foreign guests to Uzbekistan. Active types of tourism, ecologic tours and extreme sports also attract people to Uzbekistan, Narodnoye Slovo reported.

Anvar Temurkhodjaev said that the Uzbek specialists are continuing work on development of programmes directed at developing infrastructure. Uzbekistan plans to develop hotels, cmapings, road side tourism points, etc.

On 20 March 2013, Uzbek President signed a resolution “On measures on development of tourism in Khorezm region for 2013-2015”, which envisages complex development of tourism sector in the region.

He added that Uzbekistan also works on creation of state programmes on tourism development, which determines national strategy for ensuring sustainable development of the tourism sector for long-term perspective.

He stated that Uzbekistan will implement several measures directed at increasing tourists’ inflow. Each quarter, foreign tour operators and journalists will be invited to study tours to Uzbekistan.

In April, Tashkent will host an international exhibition “World of Leisure 2013”, which will also present national cuisine of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan will also show video about the country at foreign TV stations and distribute advertisement materials.

Uzbekistan Travel Workshop-2013, a regional forum, will be held in Khiva in summer, which will be directed at developing internal tourism. The work on creation of regional infrastructure development programmes is underway. Uzbekistan also works on improvement of specialists’ training.