Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 28
By Fikret Dolukhanov – Trend:
Uzbekistan will be visited by 4.8 million tourists until the end of 2018, which is 45.45 percent more compared to preliminary plans (3.3 million people), the State Committee of Uzbekistan for Tourism Development told Trend on Sept. 28.
According to the information, some 3.4 million tourists visited Uzbekistan by Sept. 1, 2018, which already exceeds the plan for 2018 and is 126 percent more than in the same period of 2017 (1.5 million people).
“Since the beginning of the year, a number of projects have been launched, aimed at developing tourism in Uzbekistan and promoting the national tourism offers on the international market. As a result, the export of tourism services in January-August 2018 amounted to $666.9 million, which is more than twice, compared to the January-August 2017 ($327.3 million),” the Committee said.
The state agency reminded that the establishment of a visa-free regime for eight countries (total – 17) and increasing the number of countries eligible for the simplified visa regime from 12 to 51 seriously contributed to the development of this sphere.
“The e-visa system has been launched, the visa-free regime to transit passengers from 101 states through the international airports of Uzbekistan has been introduced, registration of tourists in the country has been fully transferred to electronic format and is now carried out through the E-mehmon [E-guest] system,” the Committee said.
It should be noted that a number of large-scale tourism projects are currently being implemented in Uzbekistan: the country's first ski resort Amirsoy, a golf club and academy, the Three Cities complex in Tashkent are being built, the three largest hotels in the city of Bukhara for 1,150 people total are being renovated, etc.
A twenty-storey Hilton hotel, a five-star Ritz Carlton hotel, a European boulevard and other objects will be opened on the territory of the Tashkent City international business center are also being built. The project is implemented exclusively at the expense of financial injections from Uzbek and foreign investors.
To attract additional foreign funds in the tourism industry, investment proposals with foreign (Germany, France, Spain, India and Egypt) and local investors in the amount of some $600 million have been further developed.
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