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S.R. Safaeva., M. Tarikulov, TSUE
OVERVIEW OF UZBEKISTAN TOURISM INDASTRY(DEVELOPMENT OF
UZBEKISTAN’S TOURISM INDASTRY DURING THE PERIOD 2007-2012)
Мақолада 2007-2012 йилларда Ўзбекистонда туризм ривожланиши
маълумотлари асосида туризм индустриясининг бугунги кундаги ҳолати
таҳлили берилган. Шунингдек Ўзбекистонда туризм ривожланишига таъсир
этувчи омиллар ўрганилиб чиқилган. Туризм индустриясини келажакда
ривожлантиришга йўналтирилган таклиф ва тавсиялар келтирилган.
В статье дается анализ состояния индустрии туризма, на основании
данных развития туризма Узбекистана в 2007-2012 г.г. Также рассмотрены
фактора влияющие на развитие туризма в Узбекистане. В статье
разработаны выводы и предложения для дальнейшего развития индустрии
туризма.
Keywords:
Tourism, exports, TV clips, international market, statistics analysis.
INTRODUCTION
Tourism activities are considered to be one of the sources of economic growth
in the world. Tourist spending has served as an alternative form of exports,
contributing to an ameliorated balance of payments through foreign exchange earning
in many countries. A balanced and harmonic growth of tourist economy in relation to
the other sectors of economic activity and mainly the most basic sectors, such as
agricultural and industrial economy, ensures with the types of nutrition and the capital
equipment the production of tourist products, which are necessary for the satisfaction
of tourist needs or wishes. As a result, the development of tourism has generally been
considered a positive contribution to economic growth.
Taking into account that a large proportion of tourist expenditures are spent on
the consumption of non-traded goods and services in the host country, there exist
factors, which can have either a positive role or an unfavorable impact on economic
growth. Non-traded goods and services are not exportable in the traditional sense,
because their price is not determined in the international market, but in the local
market.
On the past several decades, international tourism has been gaining importance
in many economies of the world. It continued to grow throughout the world, in
line with vigorous world economic expansion especially in countries with high
tourist outflows. The number of tourists worldwide went up in 2012 to almost 989
million. By region, Europe remained the leading tourist destination in world with 516
million visitors, posting a market share of 53.8% in 2012 (World Bank 2013).
The purpose of this paper is to empirically re-examine the long-run co
movements between economic growth and tourism development in a multivariate
model with tourism real receipts per capita, the number of international tourist arrivals
per capita, real effective exchange rate i.e., a proxy variable for external
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competitiveness and real GDP per capita (GDP) using the comparative statistics
analysis technique.
The main aim of the current paper is twofold. First, the paper aims as
investigating whether tourism benefits have different impact on destination countries
under consideration, due to specific characteristic. The second objective is to derive
some recommendations and suggestions regarding the best practices and efficient
tools to develop tourism sector in Uzbekistan.
The article is organized as follows: Section 1 Introduction, section 2 reviews
various studies related to tourism development thus comprising a brief literature
review. The model specification and data issues, as well as statistical analysis
combined with some essential figures relating to Uzbek tourism sector, section 3.
Concluding remarks as well as recommendations on the development of Uzbek
tourism sector with regards to the findings from the current study are given in the
final section.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Tourism is a dynamic, evolving, consumer-driven force and is the world's
largest industry, or collection of industries. Tourism plays a foundational role in
framing the various services that hospitability companies perform. Tourism affects
other industry sectors, such as public transportation, foodservice, lodging,
entertainment, and recreation. In addition, tourism produces secondary impacts on
businesses that are affected indirectly, which is known as the multiplier effect. From
a social and cultural perspective, tourism can further international understanding and
economically improve poorer countries (Walker, 2010).
Over the last decades, the growth and development of tourism as both a social
and economic activity has, by any stretch of the imagination, been remarkable
(Richard Sharpley 2009). In 1970, the total worldwide international tourist arrivals
amounted to just 165.787 million; by the start of the new millennium, that figure had
risen to 696 million and since then international tourism has continued its growth. In
2011, 980 million international arrivals and $1.031billion international tourism
receipts were recorded (UNWTO). In 2012 the international tourist arrivals surpassed
the milestone of 1 billion tourists globally for the first time in history and it is
foreseen that they will grow by 3-4% in 2013 (UNWTO World Tourism Barometer,
April 2013).
In 2000 the total number of jobs generated directly in the Travel & Tourism
industry plus the indirect and induced contributions was 788,3 million. In 2012 the
total number declined in 688,8 million jobs (SETE, 2013). Despite this decline,
tourism remains one of the world's most important sources of employment and
for
many developing nations it represents a large percentage of gross national product
and a way of gaining a positive balance of trade with other nations (Walker, 2010).
Economic development level affects virtually all aspects of tourism
development, including the size and features of tourism demand, the availability and
adequacy of tourism resources, the characteristics of tourism development, the
organization and management of the industry, and the impacts of the tourism
development. Therefore, while leisure travel has become a mass consumption item in
developed countries at is still a luxury in the developing world (Zhen-hua Liu, 1998).
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The tourism development model of the country can determine not only the
level of tourist activity but also sociocultural changes in these countries. Each country
has own historical development, cultural traditions, geographical location, local
citizen’s involvement and acceptance of the tourism industry. This is why the
selection of a development orientation can be difficult. Gartner (1996) shows the
eligible type of development model for each area depends on the level of public
support for tourism development, resources and attractions currently in place, level of
government involvement and the size of expected market.
A systematic approach to tourism development, planning and management is
advocated because it can accommodate social and environmental problems, as well as
economic factors that have been the focus of previous research
(Smith, 1996)
.
Furthermore, it is argued that the tourism system is an open system in that it responds
to changes in social, natural and economic factors and is evolving into an increasing
state of complexity. In addition tourism promotes infrastructure development and the
redistribution of resources to further the amelioration of poverty.
Obidjon Khamidov (2010) mentioned that tourism industry has gained top
priority in most of the destination countries and there exist increased competition
among the countries to attract tourists. In the face of world-wide increased
competition, Uzbekistan lacks far behind in attracting relatively larger number of
foreign tourists mainly due to inadequate and ineffective promotional strategies of the
industry, due to lack of sufficient funds, low quality of promotional materials and its
improper distribution, perceived negative image of potential tourists about
Uzbekistan, etc. The author also showed the importance of the competition and to
attract potential tourists Uzbekistan needs to give priority to effective promotional
activities in order to attract a significant number of foreign tourists . In addition, tour
operating firms need to give proper attention in developing the promotional materials
and careful attention is required to incorporate the factors affecting the choice of
potential tourists. Without effective and sufficient promotional activities from both
the public and private sector, there is no possibility or little possibility to emerge
tourism as a major contributor to the national economy.
Tourism researchers have long been advocating the importance of tourism
destinations to perform appropriate marketing strategies so as to promote the right
tourism products and services to specific traveller groups (Ahmed and Krohn, 1992;
Mill and Morrison, 1985 as cited in Law et. al, 2004). After having visited the official
Destination Marketing Organization Web sites of Korea and Japan (two of the most
visited destinations by Hong Kong travelers), the authors commented that these
destinations have developed their web sites in a way that promote Hong Kong
travelers’ favorite activities such as food, sightseeing and shopping. From the
practical point of view, it is obvious that for an effective marketing strategy, a
country has to target the appropriate markets first and then plan product positioning
and sales. The Uzbekistan Tourism industry is lagging far behind this.
Tukhliev and Kudratov (2007) described the current situation of Uzbekistan’s
tourism industry and the followed present marketing strategies in their research book
“Uzbekistan Tourism Industry”. The authors comment that Uzbekistan tourism
industry cannot achieve any remarkable progress if compared to other neighboring
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(Central Asian) countries, although the country is endowed with many tourism
attractions. Their criticism was concentrated mainly on the failure of Uzbek National
Tourism Board to develop and launch any dynamic and effective promotional
strategy and then they proposed the creation of an independent organization to
perform the marketing activities of the Uzbek National Tourist Board and the tourist
destinations administered by it. In addition to that they strongly recommended
formulating and implementing the marketing strategy to realize the potential of the
tourism market and to avoid the aimless policies to develop mass tourism at the
present stage in Uzbekistan.
Navruzzoda (1996) mentioned that possessing outstanding tourism resources is
not sufficient to lure the optimal number of tourists to a tourist destination. According
to the author, tourism promotion plays an important role in enhancing the competitive
edge of one tourist destination over another because of tourists’ image of a
destination and the attitude of tourists toward that destination seem to be two of the
most important factors responsible for this variation. As a result, the aggressiveness
of the promotion campaigns launched by tourist destinations has added a new
dimension to competitiveness and has resulted in increasing numbers of image
advertisements in travel and tourism literature and in the mass media which leads the
tourist destinations to spend billions of dollars annually on image building and image
correction promotion programs.
The author also concluded in his study that in order to formulate the
promotional strategy, destination’s promotion strategists should identify the
respective images of different constituents of the total image, and not just one total
image. By determining the most significant constituents of a destination’s tourist
image, the destination’s promotion strategists should direct promotional efforts
toward inducing a more favorable image based on those constituents. The appropriate
positive image constituents could then be emphasized in the promotional programs
which may help a destination to re-emerge from the effects of negative image(s).
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
After receiving its independence in 1991, Uzbekistan has begun to structure
and organize its tourism industry. As a result of organizational and structural changes
implemented, a new system of state regulation and control was established,
preconditions for infrastructure development were created, and the mechanism of
preservation and restoration of cultural and historical attractions was ensured. The
new institutions and relations at the world market were established almost from
scratch. As a result, international tourism arrivals started increasing. In some years
this growth constituted up to 25% per annum. Many experts believe that currently the
tourism sector has a limited impact on the national economy of Uzbekistan, and its
potential is not used to its full extent.
In many situations the local stakeholders have no clear understanding of
characteristics of tourism demand and which type of services should be provided in
order to satisfy tourists' needs and wants. The ability to influence the demand
depends on how well the supplier of good/services knows the customer, his needs and
preferences. There are no published study results on the profile of a foreign tourist.
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Each tourism company identifies such a profile by studying its clients. This is not
enough to gain an understanding of the overall picture that addresses the questions of
who, when, with what purposes, and with what kind of demands arrives in
Uzbekistan.
According to the information provided by Uzbek tour operators, almost 90% of
leisure tourists arriving in Uzbekistan are of middle and old age. They mainly visit
cultural and historical attractions while undertaking a trip from Tashkent to
Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva (which is the standard and the most popular tour
provided by local travel agencies).
Due to the fact that majority of foreign tourists arrive in Uzbekistan not only
with the purpose of visiting cultural attractions, and those, who arrive with this
purpose come to Uzbekistan just once and use usually only the abovementioned
standard tour. The elder tourists expect high quality and special services that will
ensure their comfort. They spend their money not as easily as their juniors. Lifestyle,
habits, values, attitude to leisure and ways of getting the knowledge about the world
of today's youth completely differs from those of the older generation at the times of
their youth. This implies that there is no guarantee that this small tourism flow
arriving in Uzbekistan currently will not exhaust itself in some time.
The charts given below provide insight and sheds light on how Uzbek tourism market
developed from 2007 to 2012.
Chart 1. International tourist arrivals (mln.)
Source: NC Uzbektourism.
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Chart 2. The cash receipts generated from international incoming tourist
arrivals (in blns. USD)
Source:http://data.worldbank.org,
Chart 2. Hotel capacity(number of beds available, units). Years 2007-2012
Source: NC Uzbekturism.
Despite the fact that the tourism industry was determined to be one of the
priorities for economic development of Uzbekistan, its potential is underestimated. A
comprehensive policy on tourism development is still missing. In particular, there is
still no clear strategy on tourism development that could optimize the efforts and
resources targeted at tourism sector development.
As we can see, all these charts and figures give us a clear understanding of the
status quo of Uzbek tourism market and implies that urgent measures are to be taken
should tourism is considered as one of the key directions of the economic growth of
this gas and gold-rich Central Asian country, striving to get rid of raw-material
export-based economy to a more efficient, sustainable one, seeing tourism as a
lucrative solution for its goals.
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CONCLUSION
Because tourism is a growth industry many countries see the promotion of
tourism as a development strategy. The development of tourism not only creates
growth in the tertiary sector, but it can also have a positive multiplier effect and cause
growth in the primary and secondary sectors as well.
Tourism not only creates jobs in the tertiary sector, it also encourages growth in
the primary and secondary sectors of industry. This is known as the multiplier effect
which in its simplest form is how many times money spent by a tourist circulates
through a country's economy. Money spent in a hotel helps to create jobs directly in
the hotel, but it also creates jobs indirectly elsewhere in the economy. The hotel, for
example, has to buy food from local farmers, who may spend some of this money on
fertiliser or clothes. The demand for local products increases as tourists often buy
souvenirs, which increases secondary employment.
As one of the conclusions from the research article, we suggest that Uzbek
Government and tourism market can exploit experiences from different Worlds
tourism destinations which is similar with Uzbekistan:
a)
focusing on cultural tourism revolving around historical sites as well as
recreational tourism, which is an advantage in Uzbekistan;
b)
in Uzbekistan government should act as the key player to promote tourism
development and formulate strategies for this purpose;
c)
high emphasis on human resource development in the tourism sphere,
because efficient human resource management in tourism is one of the key solutions
to successful tourism development, with many new courses in higher education are
being introduced in several leading universities and colleges around the country, with
the respective departments and faculties employing the highly skilled professionals
specializing in this sphere.
Another recommendation to achieve sustainable tourism development for
Uzbekistan, based on the research conducted and the observations made in the
tourism secrtors of the tourism developed countries is that the Uzbek Government
should formulate a long-term development framework for tourism (10-20 years)
with emphasis on policy and strategy, planning, institutional strengthening,
legislation and regulation, product development and diversification, marketing and
promotion, tourism infrastructure and superstructure, economic impact of tourism and
tourism investment, human resource development, and socio-cultural and
environmental impacts of tourism. It includes a short term (three-year) action plan for
priority actions to be undertaken to kick-start sustainable tourism development, and
preparation of several demonstration projects for pilot areas.
The third recommendation consists of several solutions related to issues that
can stimulate tourism sector development. These include, but not limited to:
a)Relaxing immigration controls (remove visa requirements). Uzbekistan is gradually
scrapping its visa requirements for the tourists from several developed countries.
b) Improving transport links (airports, roads and railways). Uzbekistan has rebuilt its
main four international airports (Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Urgench, the
main tourism destinations in Uzbekistan), it is updating highway 1 (the country's
principal highway) and building a new high-speed rail link running the length of the
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country. Uzbekistan Airlines is also investing heavily in new planes, it has recently
bought 3 state of the art Boeing Dreamliners.
c) Deregulation. Uzbekistan is a newly-independent country in market transition
phase, but the government relaxed government control and allowed foreign
investment in the tourist sector.
Improving tourist facilities like hotels and restaurants. In Uzbekistan international
chains like the Raddison SAS, Dedeman, Le Meridien and Hyatt have been
welcomed along with a rapid expansion of local hotels. d) Improving local language
skills e.g. start English classes (and other major languages e.g. German and French).
In Uzbekistan English is now the second language, but also other language skills,
especially German and French are being developed. e) Advertising campaigns and
links with international travel agents. Uzbekistan has recently been running several
TV clips about its tourist destinations on Euronews channel. f) Creating tourism
board and tourist information offices at home and abroad.
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