Who Is Considered a Tourist in Uzbekistan? A Strange Statistic from the Authorities

Uzbekistan’s tourism authorities continue to surprise with their methods of counting visitors. According to their data, over the first nine months of 2024, the country was visited by more than 6.5 million foreign travelers. An impressive figure, right? But when you dig a little deeper, the picture becomes less rosy.

It turns out that the top visitors are not Russians, Europeans, or Chinese, as one might expect. Leading the list are… citizens of Tajikistan — 1.8 million people. They are followed by Kyrgyz citizens (1.87 million) and Kazakh citizens (1.2 million). However, don’t rush to celebrate a sudden tourist boom among our neighbors. The majority of these “tourists” are not here for sightseeing but for business or family visits. So why are they counted as tourists? It’s simple: it makes the report look more impressive.

Compare this with figures from countries that could genuinely be considered key tourism markets for Uzbekistan: only 686,700 visitors came from Russia. From Turkey, 95,700; China, 57,700; India, 55,900; South Korea, 36,500; and Italy, 36,300.

Such counting methods seem more like an attempt to inflate the numbers for the sake of good-looking statistics rather than a real assessment of the tourist flow. After all, calling guests from neighboring countries who come for the market or to visit relatives “full-fledged tourists” is, to put it mildly, questionable.

Perhaps, instead of creating artificially inflated numbers, it would be better to focus more on attracting genuine tourists who spend money in hotels, restaurants, and on tours? Or at least honestly acknowledge who is truly visiting our country.