Tourism Khorezm province and KarakalpakstanAt present, a number of international organizations and tourist agencies are involved in working out a comprehensive program for hospitality industry development in the Khorezm Province and Karakalpakstan under the brand name “Golden Ring of Khorezm”. To this end, MBM Group experts have undertaken special studies ordered by the Institute for International Cooperation at the German Association of National Universities of Germany (IIZ/DVV). This research has been also conducted within the framework of the UNESCO Program, “Development of tourism and sustainable income increase for the population of the Aral Sea Basin”. As a IIZ/DVV representative, Uve Gartenschleger remarked, one of the study’s aim was to identify a range of the most niggling problems haunting the region. Another one was to draw human resources into the formation of sustainable tourist infrastructure in the region. In the last few years, the region’s tourist potential has strengthened with the introduction of new facilities and attractions. One of them is the Savitsky Museum in the town of Nukus, which houses a collection of unique works of Uzbek, Russian and Soviet avant-gardism. A number of ecological tours are organized to a “ship cemetery” located along what has once been the coastline of the Aral Sea. Today, the following hotels are functioning in the capital of Karakalpakstan: “Nukus”, “Toshkent” and “Derbent”. According to experts, none of them meets modern requirements, with the level of servicing leaving much to be desired. Nevertheless, a total of 1,200 tourists, who have visited Karakalpakstan by November 2004, were accommodated there. In addition, the experts assessed the quality of services provided by enterprises and firms engaged, directly or indirectly, in the tourist business. Let it be underlined that catering services provided by local enterprises gave rise to the greatest deal of unfavorable criticism. The enterprises and firms indicated above received a good rating from 5-15 per cent of tourists. Given such a low figure, the overall situation in the region’s tourist industry should be subject to scrutiny by interested organizations, managers and individual entrepreneurs. The posture of affairs in tourism and today’s realities require joining hands, pooling available resources and combining efforts in a move to eliminate shortcomings and to give fresh impetus to the sector’s sustainable development. It is hardly surprising then, that a conclusion drawn by the experts is unfavorable: most people engaged in the tourist industry lack the necessary skills because their specific background is insufficient, to say the least. In other words, they are dilettantes in the following spheres: Broaching the subject of specificity of the Khorezm Province and Karakalpakstan, it needs to take account of the fact that a weak underdeveloped material base and more rigorous natural and climatic conditions exacerbate the running of the tourist business there. The Ayaz-Kala Tour, to cite an example, has to deliver water for its tourists from the town of Buston, about 30 km from the place, where the yurtas are installed. There are no public conveniences along the entire route, which, without doubt, raises the level of discomfort and disappointment and thereby deteriorates the quality of servicing and overall impression of the tour. The number of shops trading in souvenirs and items of applied arts is small. The experts observe that a shortage of public catering facilities in the region forces tourists to bring water and foodstuffs with them, a factor that deteriorates the quality of tourist services even further. The research in question aimed to delineate directions in which to train specialists for the hospitality industry of the region. A number of polls carried out within its framework showed that disciplines in greatest request are as follows: management, foreign languages, work with clients, marketing, waiter and chambermaid services, sales technique, cookery and restaurant business, keeping of accounting records, tour organization and legislation. © Copyright: Алишер Таксанов, 2009.
Другие статьи в литературном дневнике:
|