Modern tourists are increasingly choosing alternative travel options, such as CBT-tourism (Community Based Tourism). This is a fashionable direction of rural tourism, in which the most important component is living in an environment as close as possible to the living conditions of the common people.

In order to attract tourists to the population of regions developing the CBT tourism segment, it is necessary to obtain the necessary skills. Like any type of tourism, rural tourism requires special knowledge and skills in providing tourism services and tour products. The full-scale implementation of this task is facilitated by the activities of the European Union’s project «Strengthening rural and ecotourism through business associations for sustainable economic development in Central Asia», which is successfully implemented by the Association of private tourism agencies of Uzbekistan (APTA).

As part of this project, with the support of the State Committee for Tourism, a week-long training seminar was held in Samarkand, which brought together aspiring entrepreneurs who expressed interest and willingness to learn a new type of business. They are attracted by the possibility of organizing and providing tourist services in guest houses.

The program of the training seminar organized by APTA was aimed at increasing the level of knowledge and strengthening the participants’ capacity for organizing work and successful management of guest houses. One of the tasks of the events is the construction of networking. As part of the learning process, participants not only receive the necessary amount of knowledge, but also form the business community. Networking involves the formation of business relationships, including the search for new acquaintances and the process of establishing contacts to solve your problems and profit. Networking is widely used in business. In the segment of guest houses, built effective networking is especially important and useful.

The training program was extremely rich and informative, it also included topics of narrow specialization, which are important for the successful functioning of guest houses, such as introduction to tourism, the creation and management of a guest house, etiquette of receiving and serving tourists.

For example, participants learned how to provide first aid. This was told by Victor Kim – a representative of the Tashkent International Clinic, which specializes in servicing residents of foreign countries. Fozil Kosimov informed the seminar participants in detail about the possibilities and functions of the E-MEHMONXONA system. The solutions offered by the Kabus development company have widely established themselves as effective tools for organizing and managing all business processes in hotel activities.

All classes were held in an interactive form, with the active use of business role-playing games. Ermetova Venera and Burieva Mukhtaram actively shared their experience and knowledge. Experienced coaching staff managed to rally the participants into one friendly team, which can, using cooperation mechanisms, build a successful business. The final chord of the seminar was the awarding ceremony of certificates from APTA.