Employment and Income in the Tourism Sector in Uzbekistan,

Factors that Develop the Flow of Tourists

Adilova Zulfiya, Mansurov Jakhongir and Iskandarova Dilafruz

Tashkent State University of Economics, Uzbekistan

Keywords: Tourism, Employment, Tourist Flow, Tourism Development, Economic Factors, Social Factors, Cultural

Factors.

Abstract: This article describes the relationship between the employment of personnel in the tourism sector, the income

from this sector and the flow of tourists in Uzbekistan, herewith, the factors of tourism development, the state

policy and measures for the development of tourism in the country, as well as the current state of the country

in the world ranking in the field of tourism. Based on the information of the Statistical Agency under the

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the official website of the UNWTO, the current state of

development of tourism in Uzbekistan is shown. In addition, with the help of econometric analysis, the factors

shaping the flow of tourists in Uzbekistan were studied, and it was determined which influencing factor is the

most important today. Key determinants affecting the influx of incoming tourists – including business

travelers, educational visitors, medical service users, the consumer price index, transport service volume,

hotel availability, and the number of sanatoriums and spas – were systematically selected.

1 INTRODUCTION

Tourism is a type of service industry that generates

income for a country by creating various jobs and

allowing foreigners to enter the country for various

reasons. As an intangible asset, human resources can

contribute to achieving competitive advantage for

organizations. Human resources skills and

competencies may be unique and difficult for

competitors to imitate. Organizations that want to win

in the face of fierce competition must focus on human

resource development. It is included in the human

resources of tourism. Improving the quality of

personnel is a strategic step in increasing the

efficiency of the tourism sector.

According to a report by the (WTTC) World

Travel and Tourism Council, tourism is a powerful

driver of the global economy, accounting for nearly

10 percent of the world's gross domestic product and

employing millions of people (Kitsios, Mitsopoulou,

Moustaka, & Kamariotou, 2022). Because, tourism is

the basis of the development of socio-economic life

and a catalyst for achieving the Sustainable

Development Goals (Boluk, Cavaliere, & Higgins-

Desbiolles, 2019; Sharpley, 2022). Various factors

can cause a large flow of tourists entering a country:

such as demographic and social changes, economic

development, political and legal regulation,

technological changes, educational opportunities,

trade development, transport infrastructure, and

travel safety (Anaba, Ching, & Masud, 2023). Many

developing economies, including Uzbekistan, are

now heavily dependent on the tourism industry for

their income. According to the decree of the President

of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated 05.01.2019 No.

PF-5611 "On additional measures for the rapid

development of tourism in the Republic of

Uzbekistan", diversification of tourism in the national

economy, rapid development of regions, new

comprehensive measures to develop as one of the

strategic sectors that provide jobs, increase the

income and living standards of the population, and

increase the investment attractiveness of the country

are being implemented step by step.

The liberalization of the visa regime, the

simplification of the procedure for registration of

foreign citizens, the granting of privileges and

preferences for the development of the tourism

network made it possible to effectively promote the

potential of national tourism in domestic and foreign

markets.

Currently, visa-free entry for citizens of 93 foreign

countries, electronic entry visa for 56 countries, five-

122

Zulﬁya, A., Jakhongir, M. and Dilafruz, I.

Employment and Income in the Tourism Sector in Uzbekistan, Factors that Develop the Flow of Tourists.

DOI: 10.5220/0013491400004654

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Humanities Education, Law, and Social Science (ICHELS 2024), pages 122-128

ISBN: 978-989-758-752-8

day transit visa-free entry for 47 countries, as well as

a simplified procedure for issuing tourist visas for 76

countries have been established.

In 2023, 6.6 million foreign citizens came to

Uzbekistan for tourist purposes. This indicator has

increased by 1.4 million or 26.6% compared to 2022.

Their stay in the country has increased to four days

on average, which is 1.3 times more than in 2022.

According to the analysis, in 2023, 810 new

tour operators and travel agencies will be launched in

Uzbekistan. 70,000 new jobs were created in tourism

and related industries. 183 hotels, 215 hostels, 356

family guesthouses have been opened. Placement

tools reached 5,477, and the number of places reached

142,720 (Statistics agency under the President of the

Republic of Uzbekistan, n.d.).

During 2023, the most visits were from Tajikistan (2

million 155.2 thousand), Kyrgyzstan (1 million 757.1

thousand) and Kazakhstan (1 million 333.3 thousand

people). 714,300 people came from Russia as tourists,

while Turkey's figure was 106,500.

Despite the fact that Uzbekistan has a place in

the world tourism market, the level of creating

comfortable conditions for tourists, improving

service, increasing the attractiveness of tourist

attractions and strengthening advertising is very low.

Therefore, thinking about a significant increase in this

regard depends on these factors.

However, understandings of changes in social

structures resulting from tourism and related

economic development in Uzbekistan often remain

unclear, and this often requires attention to

understanding local impacts of tourism development.

In particular, the relationship between tourism and

infrastructure, the country's economic, social and

cultural situation.

Be advised that papers in a technically unsuitable

form will be returned for retyping. After returned the

manuscript must be appropriately modified.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Tourism is the world's largest and most diverse

service sector, and many countries rely on it as a

source of income, employment, private sector growth

and investment. The ranking of competitive countries

in tourism includes the 140 most attractive tourist

destinations in the world (in terms of cultural

resources, cheap infrastructure, price of tourist

products, level of security, international

transparency), and Uzbekistan is not included in this

ranking.

Governments play an important role in promoting

tourism by offering stable policies and a strong

framework (Anaba, Masud, & Ching, 2020). Any

government cannot ignore the importance of tourism,

as tourism not only benefits the industry but also

generates positive economic results at the national

and local levels. Government involvement in tourism

development is vital and has produced remarkable

results, such as in Malaysia, Indonesia, Bahamas,

Jamaica, Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Dubai,

Tunisia and other countries (Akama, 2002). They

stimulate tourism, which increases the country's gross

domestic product (GDP) and the standard of living of

its citizens. The growth of the tourism sector is

closely related to the availability of necessary

infrastructure, such as transport and tourist

attractions, in addition to investment (Anaba, Masud,

& Ching, 2020).

Therefore, today, both the state and the private

sector are directing large resources to the tourism

industry. According to Keum, due to globalization

and market liberalization worldwide, the trend of

tourist flow in tourist destinations is constantly

increasing (Keum, 2010).

Also, a number of researchers have stated that the

theories of international tourist flow are mainly

related to globalization, international trade, bilateral

agreements, tourism demand and tourism supply

(Keum, 2010; Mansfeld, 1990; Var, Mohammad, &

Icoz, 1990; Morley, 1992; Witt & Witt, 1995; Zhang

& Jensen, 2005; Song & Li, 2008; Claveria & Torra,

2014; Adeola, Boso, & Evans, 2018).

According to Boniface (Boniface, Cooper, &

Cooper, 2016), the flow of tourists is not just a

movement of people, but an important economic

value for the tourism system, that is, international

tourism represents a flow of money that earns money

in one place and spends it in another.

Also, various factors affecting the development of

tourism have been studied by many scientists in their

research and they have listed many factors that are

similar and close to each other. They include: income,

transportation costs, relative tourism prices,

promotion expenditure of tourism destination, and

availability of special events, availability of money

and leisure time, GDP per capita and bi-lateral trade

volume between countries, price, personal financial

capacity to travel and budget, destination image and

destination competitiveness and etc (Lim, 1999; Song

& Witt, 2000; Seyidov & Adomaitienė, 2016;

Narayan, 2004; Eryiǧit, Kotil, & Eryiǧit, 2010;

Prideaux, 2005).

According to X. Luo (Luo, 2019), the willingness

to serve other people creates the added value

Employment and Income in the Tourism Sector in Uzbekistan, Factors that Develop the Flow of Tourists

123

necessary for HR in the tourism industry. Hence, HR

has a potential mediating function in enterprises in the

tourism sector (Fig 1).

A.A. Eshtaev (Eshtayev, 2023), M.T. Alieva,

A.N. Norchaev and Z.D. Adilova (Alieva, Norchaev,

& Adilova, 2010; Adilova, 2024) and others from

local scientists have covered tourism, personnel

management in tourism and its development factors

in Uzbekistan in their research works.

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In the research work, econometric-statistical analysis,

correlation-regression methods were used in order to

study the current state of the tourism industry in

Uzbekistan, development factors, the main goals of

tourists entering the country, and which sector can be

developed to increase the number of incoming

tourists. Also, in order to carry out this analysis, the

data of the official website of the Statistical Agency

under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan and

the data of the official website of UNWTO were used

(UNWTO, 2024).

4 ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

In this research, we have analyzed the main factors of

tourism development in Uzbekistan, and we have

determined the purpose of tourists visiting

Uzbekistan. The number of tourists entering the

country is increasing, and we need to analyze the

reasons for the arrival of these tourists and study

which sectors attract more foreigners to the country

and in which sectors we need to improve the

infrastructure.

Figure 1: Employment and created gross added value in tourism sectors of Uzbekistan (Irmatova, Iskandarova, Pirnazarova,

Mansurov, & Xakimova, 2024)

Figure 2: Total arrivals to Uzbekistan (Statistics Agency, n.d.)

2000

4000

6000

8000

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

2017

2019

2021

Total arrivals

231.4

190.8

208.1

214.6

24742.7

22903.6

31988.2

43426.6

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

45000

50000

0.0

50.0

100.0

150.0

200.0

250.0

2019 2020 2021 2022

Employment in tourism, thousand people

Gross added value created in tourism

industries, billion soums

ICHELS 2024 - The International Conference on Humanities Education, Law, and Social Science

124

In the tourism sector, employment and gross value

added are interrelated (GVA), and a higher level of

employment leads to an increase in GVA. At the same

time, the development of tourism creates new jobs

and contributes to the growth of the country's GDP.

Employment in tourism is formed depending

on the flow of tourists. Many jobs are created in

places that attract a lot of tourists (Fig 2).

Since the measurement units of the variables are

different and to better explain the interpretation of the

multifactor econometric model, we can conduct

descriptive statistics on the factors before creating a

multifactor econometric model. The obtained results

are reflected in Table 1. The average value, median,

mode, maximum and minimum values for the

dynamics of each factor can be seen from the table

data. It is also possible to see the standard deviation,

variance, excess and asymmetry of each factor. A

correlational analysis is necessary to select factors for

a multifactor econometric model. First, starting with

the correlation analysis, we will determine the

correlation density of each factor. For this, we use the

pair correlation coefficient.

Table 1: Descriptive statistics on selected factors

Variables Y X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7

Mean 3774,889

30,7444

10,6777

44,2444

110,822

56136,

998,77

455,22

Standard

Erro

726,3986

7,16021

1,89683

8 6,24878

1,20528

7 8864,064 77,29269 25,50533

Median 2690 18,5 8,8 52,5

111,

53662,

9 1051 460

Mode - - ---- - -

Standard

Deviation 2179,196

21,4806

5,69051

18,7463

4 3,61586 26592,19 231,8781 76,51598

Sample

Variance 4748895

461,417

32,3819

351,425

13,0744

4 7,07E+08 53767,44 5854,694

Excess

1,9944

0,5732

0,21508

1,40819

1,23143 0,37979

0,66135 0,396131

Asymmetr

0,387231

1,06860

0,94723

0,24224

0,37608 0,954889 0,094528 0,105057

Interval

5244

,4 56,8 16,7 55 9,6 81272,9 726 263

Minimu

1504,1 13,6 4,7 15 105,6 26817,3 661 328

Maximu

6748

,5 70,4 21,4 70

115,

108090

,2 1387 591

Sum

3397

276,

7 96,1

398,

997,

505226

,8 8989 4097

Observati

ons 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

Table 2: Correlation matrix

ln Y ln X1 ln X2 ln X3 ln X4 ln X5 ln X6 ln X7

ln Y 1,000

ln X1 0,828 1,000

ln X2 0,823 0,880 1,000

ln X3 0,527 0,510 0,715 1,000

ln X4 0,561 0,339 0,268

0,108 1,000

ln X5 0,590 0,365 0,228 0,022 0,414 1,000

ln X6 0,526 0,350 0,159

0,166 0,488 0,970 1,000

ln X7 0,585 0,731 0,476

0,059 0,352 0,357 0,455 1,000

Employment and Income in the Tourism Sector in Uzbekistan, Factors that Develop the Flow of Tourists

125

Table 3: Estimated parameters of the multifactor econometric model

Variables Coefficients Standard erro

t-statistic

-value

-30,3169 18,46392

-1,64196 0,242301

lnх1

-0,03374 0,553308

-0,06098 0,95692

lnх2

0,527567 0,577619

0,913347 0,457474

lnх3

0,036277 0,58211

0,062319 0,955976

lnх4

6,445349 3,674672

1,753993 0,221523

lnх5

1,902719 1,7946

1,060247 0,40015

lnх6

-3,10896 3,60776

-0,86174 0,479649

lnх7

1,244211 1,254464

0,991827 0,425808

Observations Normalized, R

R-squared F-statistics Probability

(

F-statistic

)

10 0.77 0.95

5,3 0.17

Since the measurement units of the variables are

different and to better explain the interpretation of the

multifactor econometric model, we create a

correlation matrix by logarithmizing the values of all

factors in natural form (Table 2).

It can be seen from Table 2 that private correlation

coefficients indicate the density of connections

between the resulting factor (ln y) and the factors

affecting it. That is, the values of private correlation

coefficients are greater than 0.5 and they can be

included in the multifactor model. However,

according to the results of the calculation - the book,

some of the values of the mutual pair correlation

coefficients (rx,y) of the influencing factors described

above are higher than 0.5. It appears that there is a

problem of multicollinearity among the selected

factors.

To perform the analysis, we construct a

multivariate regression equation, in which we assume

that the relationship between y and x is linear

(lny=a0+a1lnx1+a2lnx2+a3lnx3+a4lnx4+a5lnx5+a6

lnx6+a7lnx7+ɛi) and determine the parameters a0, a1,

a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7 (Table 3).

Thus, the linear regression equation of the

correlational link takes the following form:

Y=-30.3-0.03x1+0.53x2+0.04x3+6.45x4+1.9x5-

3.11x6+1.24x7

Here, the regression coefficients α1, α2, α3, α4, α5,

α6, α7 determine the relationship between the

outcome variable (Y) and the influencing factor

variable (x). This answers the question of how many

units the resultant sign increases when the factor sign

increases by one unit.

5 DISCUSSION

According to the results of the above econometric

model, the number of foreign tourists entering

Uzbekistan is equal to the number of tourists entering

for study and treatment, the number of sanatoriums

and spas, the increase in the amount of transport

services, and the consumer price index. has a

connection. An increase in the number of people

entering the country for study and treatment by one

thousand people will increase the number of foreign

tourists entering the country by 530 and 40 people,

respectively. Also, an increase in the number of

sanatoriums and spas, transport services and the

consumer price index by one unit increases the

number of tourists by 1.24, respectively; 1.9 and 6.45

leads to an increase in units. Significantly, there is an

inverse relationship between the increase in the

number of commercial visitors and the number of

hotels and the number of inbound tourists, with a one-

unit increase in these two factors leading to a decrease

in tourist arrivals by 0.03 and 3.11 units, respectively.

It is surprising that the increase in the number of

hotels does not serve to increase the number of

incoming tourists. So, this shows that it is necessary

to pay serious attention not only to the increase in the

number of hotels, but also to the quality of their

service. The inverse relationship between business

visitors and general visitors emphasizes the need for

a more in-depth study of the facilities created for

foreigners to do business in the country.

a0≈ -30.3 represents the average effect of other

factors taken as constant values in our analysis on the

resulting sign, that is, in the conditions where the

factor signs are x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x7→0, at the

expense of other factors taken as constant the

resulting sign represents Y=-30.3 equal to unity.

6 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, traveling outside one's own country or

region for various reasons, such as education,

ICHELS 2024 - The International Conference on Humanities Education, Law, and Social Science

126

medicine, leisure, or business, falls under the

category of social and economic activity known as

tourism. In general, foreign visitors for educational,

medical and commercial purposes have a positive

effect on the tourism sector. For example, through

medical tourism, patients and their attendants can use

local services and increase tourism income. Also,

these visitors tend to stay longer and use

accommodation, meals, transportation and other

services. This increases economic activity and brings

additional income to the local economy. In addition,

necessary infrastructure - hotels, clinics, educational

centers, restaurants and entertainment places - will be

developed in order to create comfort for visitors.

However, it should be noted that various factors

can affect the increase or decrease in the number of

visitors to each country, including geographic

location, attractiveness of historical and cultural

heritage, business opportunities (tax policy),

education and the level of development or

affordability of medicine, population welfare,

ecology and other such factors. Each of these factors

has developed differently across countries. In this

study, we analyzed the factors that shape the flow of

tourists to the country on the example of Uzbekistan.

It should be noted that regression and correlation

indicators (parameters of the regression equation,

determination and correlation coefficients) may be

distorted by random errors due to the fact that they are

based on quantitatively limited set of data. The effect

of random errors on regression and correlation

indicators should not be too large, otherwise such

indicators will become meaningless.

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