Khaitoy Khuzhamova

54 years, the village of Tersak

The heroine of our next Success Story is Khaitoy Khuzhamova.

Khaitoy was born in 1967 in the village of Tersak. Mother of 5 children, including 3 sons and 2 girls. All children are well-equipped in life, have received an education and many of them speak foreign languages. The eldest son lives in Tashkent. The rest of the children help their parents with business. Khaitoy's husband works as an ambulance driver. But without his support, according to Khaitoy, she would not have succeeded.

The family business started with farming, engaged in cattle breeding, gardening. In May 2021, they opened their first guest house. For 4 months of successful business, the Khuzhamovs received more than 100 guests. Because of the pandemic, these are mostly local tourists. But it happened that there were also Russian tourists.

They offer their guests hiking trips through the mountain landscapes, to the most beautiful waterfall in the area, conduct various master classes on cooking national dishes. Everything is prepared-from manty, khanum, a popular local dish kuva, to teahouse pilaf.

The tourist season in the area begins in June and lasts only 3 months. The Khaitoy Khuzhamova’s family plans to expand the range of its services and receive tourists all year round.

But in addition to supporting the family, Khaitoy was also helped by the knowledge gained at training seminars organized by the Association of Private Tourism Organizations (APTA) with the support of the USAID Project for the Development of Entrepreneurship and the Business Environment.

At the seminars, Khaitoy learned a lot, firstly, the basic postulates of hospitality, proper service, from menu development to the selection of dishes.

Now Khaitoy is mastering the technique of carpet weaving and wants to add it to the range of his services. Construction works are actively underway in the spacious courtyard on the territory of the guest house – her sons are building trestles, and in the future it is planned to build an artificial house in the nearest mountainous area. Next year, there will be no end of tourists, Khaitoy believes.

"In general, not a day without work," Khaitoy shares with us.

"Thanks to the established business, we have even opened up to 10 new jobs. Compare, immediately after receiving the loan in June, we were able to create 4 more jobs."

In the Khuzhamov family works everyone – sons, daughters-in-law, nephews and even grown-up grandchildren.

The Khuzhamovs' guest house is now ready to accommodate up to 10-12 people weekly in summer, and up to 5-6 people in winter. At the moment, they have a family of 4 people living with them.

The key to success in any business, Khaitoy believes, is first of all friendship and solidarity, and observance of traditions, without this, even in a family business, nowhere.

And Khaitoy also hopes for new regular seminars and trainings, because they have brought her great benefits.

The success story was developed by the Association of Private Tourism Organizations of Uzbekistan (APTA) with the support of the USAID Future Growth Initiative Project.