Gatekeepers of Tourism Development in Uzbekistan

Abstract

Uzbekistan’s tourism industry should a competitive advantage for the country with significant contribution to economic growth. However, despite heavy investment in the tourism sector, the country has mainly increased the number of tourists from neighboring countries, without major impact on attracting tourists from around the world. This paper focuses on the obstacles that create problem for tourists to visit Uzbekistan and the reasons why Uzbekistan is not competitive with its neighboring countries, despite being rich in various types of tourism activities and opportunities. Good decision-making and problem solving are important factors for the development of tourism sector and the thesis highlights several theories and research papers that describe the obstacles of tourism development in general. The research conducted via online interview of twenty international tourists and the mixed methodology was used to analyze the findings. The objectives of the thesis were: 1. To analyze whether there are any obstacles in tourism industry of Uzbekistan; 2. To analyze whether visa policy is the main obstacle of tourism development of Uzbekistan. The outcome of the research confirms the existence of problems in Uzbek tourism. Findings indicate that the strict visa policy and border controls are the main obstacles to tourism development. Current research is significant due to the tourism potential of the country and future contribution of tourism in the national economy of the country.