Abdulaziz Aqqulov, Chairman of the Tourism Committee, announced at a press conference on May 15 that Uzbekistan will introduce unified tour scripts for 209 tourist sites, address the shortage of guides, and ban foreign citizens from providing guide services.
Currently, there are only 4,500 guides operating in Uzbekistan, which is considered extremely low. Over 80% of tour operators expressed dissatisfaction with the skills of guides trained in the last five years, according to Aqqulov.
Aqqulov described the guide issue as painful and stated that a draft government resolution has been developed and agreed upon with all ministries and agencies. The resolution, in its final stage at the Cabinet of Ministers, includes the development of a single script for 209 important sites, based on which all excursions must be conducted.
“We observe that due to the shortage of guides, foreign tourist groups come with their own tour leaders and conduct excursions, telling whatever they have read from various sources,” Aqqulov said.
“Therefore, we have compiled a list of 209 strategically important sites related to our values and history, for which a unified script is being developed. No other interpretation is allowed. Excursions will only be conducted based on that script,” he added.
To increase the number of guides, the committee plans to issue guide certificates to university students. “We will provide guide certificates based on a dual education system to students in seven fields at 3-4 year universities. If our proposal is adopted, we will be able to train up to 7,500 students as guides annually,” Aqqulov said.
Additionally, measures will be taken to ban foreign citizens from providing excursion services in Uzbekistan.
Jahongir Matkarimov, advisor to the Tourism Committee chairman, spoke about the training system for sign language guides. Currently, 26 young people are being trained. Previously, there was no clear system; the first pilot project started in 2023 with 10 sign language guides.
Matkarimov noted that sign language guide training is organized in four main tourist destinations: Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Khorezm region. In addition to training, video materials for sign language guides on tourist sites have been prepared and posted on social media.
“Each country's sign language differs. Therefore, we first teach the rules of that language, then prepare them for guiding. This process takes a lot of time due to several stages,” he explained.
Source: www.gazeta.uz