A Media-Tour for guides, tourism organizations representatives and mass media was organized during 23-27 August in the Jizakh and Samarkand regions of Uzbekistan. The info tour was organized as a part of the USAID Project on the development of enterprise and business environment of the Association of Private Tourism Agencies (APTA) and the National PR Center under the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Uzbekistan.
The current information tour was organized with the aim of developing Community-Based Tourism and promoting the tourism potential of guest houses, as well as service packages provided for tourists in guest houses.
CBT – Community Based Tourism is a type of tourism based on communities, where the members of the local community are involved in the tourism industry and thus benefit from their activity. CBT in Uzbekistan is tightly connected to the cultural and national peculiarities of the region and local traditions of Uzbek society. We can see rapid growth in the number of CBT travelers lately, due to which the number of guest-houses is also increasing.
Recently, in the month of May of the current year 2021, the Association of Private Tourism Agencies (APTA) held a series of seminars and trainings on organizing the efficient operation of a guesthouse for the future entrepreneurs and business owners of the Jizakh, Samarkand and Bukhara regions of Uzbekistan. A series of trainings and seminars were organized as a part of the USAID project on the development of enterprise and business environment in Uzbekistan.
Around 200 entrepreneurs planning to start a guesthouse business, as well as 100 tour operators and guides had participated in the current seminars and trainings by APTA. The local people were trained and taught such basic skills as organizing a guesthouse, business management, marketing tools, reporting, budget management and others. Additionally, the participants had practical activities and projects on designing new tourist destinations, composed menus of national Uzbek food, as well as European cuisine in combination.
As a result of the abovementioned events organized by APTA, more than 35 guesthouses were opened in the village of Tersak of the Samarkand region, whereas the Zamin region has 40 guesthouses opened during several months. Today, the total number of guesthouses makes 80. The guesthouses of Uzbekistan not only provide accommodation for those traveling to Uzbekistan, but also offer other activities such as master classes on making national Uzbek cuisine, mastering Uzbek handicraft products, visiting the local tourist attractions of Uzbekistan, as well as demonstrating and giving the travelers visiting Uzbekistan to experience the local people’s everyday lives and activities.
