Abstract
In these days, tourism is rapidly gaining more and more popularity in the world, this raises the problem of congestion in many popular tourist regions, while many other regions remain impassable, unknown and unpopular. The development of globalization has significantly expanded the world tourism market, the number of tourists, the variety and number of tourist products, the geography of travel destinations, the latest tourism technologies are developing, new travel companies are appearing. In this regard, in order to reduce the problem of congestion in relevant tourist regions, it becomes necessary to promote those territories that are unpopular and unrecognizable in our time and about which too little information has been collected. Also, there has a problem related to finance of tourists: In most cases, they cannot let themselves to go to places they want. A completely new, only contagious type of tourism can solve this problem – Photo-tourism, thanks to which tourists will be able to see the whole diversity of natural, cultural and historical tourist regions and places. The purpose of the article is to determine the relevance of the promotion of tourist areas using the type of tourism as photo-tourism. To investigate the types of photo-tourism, to define the concepts and methods of implementing the promotion of territories using photo-tourism. The article discusses the features of photo-tourism, identifies areas of its development and attractive events, festivals in the Samarkand, identifies the target audience, identifies environmental criteria for creating high-quality photos, and analyzes the photo-tourism market in Uzbekistan.
Introduction
In the light of current economic reforms and transformations, Uzbekistan is looking to become an internationally attractive and competitive tourism destination for global visitors. Due to the strong state support of the country’s tourism industry in the form of economic incentives, simplified visa regime for foreigners, improving hospitality infrastructure and other government policies towards greater openness, Uzbekistan over the last three years has been able to increase the number of visitors for more than three times (from 2,158,000 arrivals in 2016 to 6,748,500 arrivals in 2019). The economic reforms aiming to support the tourism industry of Uzbekistan shall focus on the long-term sustainability of the sector’s growth implying that the policy measures should address not only the increase in visitors’ numbers, but also maintain the achieved indicators at sustained rates. The given article intends to study the components of the attractiveness and competitiveness of tourism destinations worldwide, and derive from this study necessary knowledge and useful lessons in formulating the country’s long-term policy for tourism’s sustainable development.
Until the 1980s, tourism had had no particular importance for the national budgets. The countries were not motivated to invest in the development of their tourism industries. However, in the beginning of the XXI century the situation changed radically and tourism currently is one of the fastest growing markets worldwide. According to World Tourism Organization forecast in 2030 the tourism market will double its capacity compared to 2010 and will amount 1.9 billion people as industry customers. Revenues of businesses in tourism will reach US$2trillion.
Thus, the attractiveness factors of tourism destinations play the important role in the tourists’ decision-making process. Competitiveness in tourism is the determinant that summarizes attractiveness of a given tourism destination. It enhances the socio cultural, economic and environmental benefits to the current and future generations of the people in host and guest societies.
Discussion
The attractiveness of a tourism destination reflects the opinions of visitors regarding the destination’s perceived ability to satisfy their needs and encourage them to spend time there. As such, the more a particular destination is able to meet the needs of the tourists, the more it is perceived to be attractive and the more likely it will be chosen. In other words, since tourists are attracted to a destination by the special attributes it offers, the destination with more attractive attributes is thought to have a higher probability of being selected and revisited.
Destination attractiveness is enhanced by the attributes of the area, or those components that make up the destination. Being composed of a number of multi-dimensional attributes that together determine its attractiveness to a particular individual in a given choice situation, basic elements of destination attractiveness have been variously proposed by many tourism researchers.
To compete effectively, destinations have to deliver quality experiences and excellent value to visitors. The business of tourism is complex and fragmented and from the time that visitors arrive in the destination, until they leave, the quality of their experience is affected by many services and experiences, including a range of public and private services, community interactions, environment and hospitality. Delivering excellent value will depend on many tourism enterprises working together in unity. Destination management calls for a coalition of these different interests to work towards a common goal to ensure the viability and integrity of their destination now, and for the future.
Without the attractiveness, tourism does not exist and there could be little or no need for tourist facilities and services. It is only when people are attracted to a destination that facilities and services follow. The attractiveness of a destination reflects the feelings and opinions of its visitors about the destination’s perceived ability to satisfy their needs. The more a destination is able to meet the needs of the tourists, the more it is perceived to be attractive and the more the destination is likely to be chosen. Mayo and Jarvis define attractiveness as, ‘the perceived ability of the destination to deliver individual benefits’. This ability is enhanced by the attributes of a destination, i.e. those components that define a destination. The importance of these attributes help people to evaluate the attractiveness of a destination and make relevant choices.
Tourism competitiveness for a destination is about the ability of the place to optimize its attractiveness for residents and non-residents, to deliver quality, innovative, and attractive (e.g. providing good value for money) tourism services to consumers and to gain market shares on the domestic and global market places, while ensuring that the available resources supporting tourism are used efficiently and in a sustainable way. Inevitably, tourism destination attractiveness represented by its perceptional and real image projects destination’s physical, functional characteristics - prices, size, and climate and the intangible, psychological characteristics, the added value - atmosphere or romance of the settings, “friendliness” of locals. And what better summarized organic or induced image of a tourism destination than its tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
Culture and tourism have a mutually beneficial relationship, which can strengthen the attractiveness and competitiveness of tourism destinations. Culture is increasingly an important element of the tourism product, which creates distinctiveness in a crowded global marketplace. At the same time, tourism provides an important means of enhancing culture and creating income, which can support and strengthen cultural heritage, cultural production and creativity. Creating a strong relationship between tourism and culture can therefore help destinations to become more attractive as well as more competitive as locations to live, visit, work and invest in.
Culture, like nature, can be an important component of economic development generally, not just in tourism. Moreover, culture provide benefits internationally to those who have not visited, and may never visit, sites. Cultural heritage tourism is viewed as travel concerned with experiencing cultural environments, including landscapes, the visual and performing arts, and special lifestyles, values, traditions and events. It is important to impact on the fact that cultural heritage tourism involves not only tangible or visible heritage such as sites, colors, materials, and settlement patterns, but also intangible heritage such as societal structures, traditions, values, and religion.
Conculsion
This article, while studying the factors affecting the attractiveness and competitiveness of tourism destinations, found culture to be one factor considered along with others in destination decisions, and that culture tended to be valued most by the highly-educated and particularly those with an artistic education. Culture, like nature, can be an important component of economic development generally, not just in tourism.
Uzbekistan, located in the heart of ancient Great Silk Road and historically known as a center of knowledge and culture of the Muslim world, is indeed a key cultural tourism destination, with a large number of major Islamic historical and archaeological sites and a strong flow of international and domestic visitors. International tourists are more and more looking for true experiences, for meeting and getting to know other people and other cultures. The country’s tourism policies and reforms in future will need to adapt to these trends and develop a quality offer promoting traditional Uzbek culture and traditions and paying attention to sustainable aspects: preservation of the heritage, of the landscape, of the local culture. A cultural heritage can not only be a competitive advantage for Uzbekistan, nevertheless it can sustain country’s development, it can increase annual average room revenue by attracting creditworthy tourist and it will help the country’s tourism industry to avoid seasonality.
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