Tourism portal of Samarkand to be created

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- A special portal dedicated tourism potential of Samarkand city will be created soon, the head of Samarkand regional branch of Uzbektourism Ilhom Suvonov told in interview to Pravda Vostoka newspaper.

He said that the company also works on developing of a plan on systematic development of tourism infrastructure in rural areas, promote educational, scientific, ecological and sport tourism.

The quality of services will be improved as well and work on using modern forms of attracting tourists is also improving.

Last year, the paper said that tourism organizations of the region received over 90,000 tourists, of them over 50,000 from various regions of Uzbekistan. They used services for US$11.6 million.

Launch of high-speed train Afrosiyob helped to double inflow of foreign and local tourists to Samarkand twice.

Samarkand has over 40 historic monuments, which were included to UNESCO list. Currently, many foreigners know Sher-dor, Mirzo Ulugbek, Tillya Kori, Shahi Zinda and other objects.

The region currently implements a programme on developing tourism for 2012-2015, which envisages construction of new modern hotels, camping sights, restaurants, hard currency exchange points, etc. Currently there are 140 tourism organizations and 78 modern hotels with 3,780 places in the region.