Tourism in Uzbekistan is traditionally associated with the UNESCO world heritage cities of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and Shakhrisabz. But it’s not just the cities that are UNESCO world heritage sites that attract thousands and thousands of visitors. Every city in Uzbekistan gives hundreds of reasons to visit it. And of course, Tashkent is a mandatory destination for tourists. Including for CBT fans.

Unique nature and rich traditions are the two main components of success for the development of rural tourism. And these two components are widely represented in Uzbekistan. Now the main thing is to quickly and effectively implement the existing potential. The European Union 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), contributes to the full implementation of this task.

Within the framework of the project, a number of seminars were organized in the regions of the country with the support of the state tourism Committee. The next point was the capital of Uzbekistan – Tashkent. With the assistance of the Department for tourism development of the city of Tashkent, a training seminar for owners of family guest houses was held from 24 to 29 June.

When Tashkent welcomes guests «at home»

Taking into account the specifics of the work of a family guest house in megapolis, the organizers of the event slightly adjusted the program of the seminar, while focusing the participants ‘ attention on the applied aspects of the activity. For example, on the first day of the seminar, participants noted the problem of lack of information about cultural leisure. Therefore, to remove this issue from the agenda, to present the features of the service aydatuda.uz the developers of this information service were invited to talk about the possibilities of the news aggregator and how it can be useful for owners of family guest houses.

In Tashkent, most of the training time was spent on practical classes with the active use of tools for role-playing and business games.

The seminar participants were very interested in the speeches of a psychologist and an etiquette specialist. The applied knowledge gained in the course of training will help the owners of family guest houses to serve guests at a higher level of service. The information that representatives of the State tax Committee and KABUS WEB SOLUTIONS (developer of the E-mehmonxona software product) announced in their presentations will be no less useful for everyday business activities.

Forming close business relationships is a key task of the APTA workshop

The training seminars organized by the APTA are aimed at increasing the level of knowledge and strengthening the capacity of participants to organize work and successfully manage guest houses. Also, one of the tasks of training seminars is to build a network. As part of the training process, participants not only get the necessary amount of knowledge, but also form a business community. In the guest house segment, effective networking is particularly important and useful.

Rapid exchange of information and mutual assistance help to solve a wide range of issues and improve the overall level of services.