“Today’s Tashkent is better than Dubai in 1994,” the capital’s khokim said, noting that the Arabs have paid great attention to tourism and become one of the world’s tourist centers. “Of course, it is very difficult to reach Dubai, but if we dream, can’t we achieve at least partially?” Jakhongir Artikhodjayev said. He expressed confidence that if the video “Hello, Tashkent” is well promoted, tourist flow to the city will increase significantly.
Tashkent city khokim Jakhongir Artikhodjayev spoke at a briefing on the topic of tourism development on August 8, UzReport TV channel reported.
"Today’s Tashkent is better than Dubai in 1994, I can say for sure. It has been a few years... Slowly today, Dubai is hosting 80 million* people. It gave great strength to tourism and created great opportunities, it did not depend on oil. The city has begun to do the best in the field of tourism, etc.
I think of course it is very difficult to reach Dubai, but if we dream well, we can come closer to the level of Dubai, can’t we?” the khokim said.
Artikhodjayev assured that the video clip “Hello, Tashkent” made for the purpose of developing tourism in the capital will bring great results.
“Let’s all promote the video. If you say: “We believed in you and campaigned, no one came in December”, no matter how much you scold or curse, I agree.
If we promote this, I think that after a month, 20 days, tourist “rain” will start. If we all work together, it will work. It will go on until December 15-20. We will talk to you about the “result” in winter - in December. I will work for the result, the head of the city said.
*For information, tourist flows to Dubai, the most famous city of the United Arab Emirates, exceeded 16 million for the first time in 2019 before the pandemic and reached 16.7 million. In 2019, Dubai took first place in Mastercard’s ranking of the cities where tourists spent the most money.
According to the State Statistics Committee, 609,600 foreign citizens visited Uzbekistan in the first quarter of 2022. 95% of them came from CIS countries.
According to the Tashkent city administration, 1 million 742 thousand tourists came to the capital in the first 7 months of 2022, 318 thousand of them are foreign and the rest are local tourists. The city can serve 33,000 tourists per day.
Jakhongir Artikhodjayev said at the briefing that 12,000 questionnaires were distributed to 95 hotels and 16 famous restaurants in the city for 3 months. 4,789 of them received answers. The goal is to find out what tourists want to see in Tashkent, what reason they can come back here again. The most proposals were in the areas of infrastructure improvement, cultural recreation and services, as well as landscaping.
