Ambassador's speech at presentation of tourism in Uzbekistan

Welcome by Ambassador of Uzbekistan

HE Mr. Otabek Akbarov 

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear guests,

I am very delighted to welcome you at the Embassy and to thank for your interest to our country.

Today we will present you tourism opportunities in Uzbekistan. The Embassy is happy to organize this event jointly with Uzbektourism National Company, British-Uzbek Society and Uzbekistan Airways.

I would like to introduce to you chairman of Uzbektourism Minister Zokhidjon Khakimov, chairman of British-Uzbek Society Dr Hartley Booth and head of Uzbekistan Airways Office in London Mr Alexey Yaitskiy. Along with them, we have today a delegation of top managers of leading Uzbek tourism companies Davr Tour, Ferghana Tourist and Beldersay.   

As you know, the territory of Uzbekistan has been on crossroads of Eastern and Western civilizations for many centuries, and was the heart of the Silk Road during its flourishing times. Our world-famous cities of Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva built up by generations of our ancestors exemplify the harmonious combination of different cultures and traditions.  

Since ancient time, Europeans, including the British, had a special interest to our region. Thus, the world-known Venetian merchant and traveler Marco Polo in his book on travels to Asia (XIII century) described Samarkand with admiration calling it as great and noble city. Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, envoy of Enrique III of Castile, in his book “Narrative of the Embassy to the Court of Temur at Samarkand” (XV century) described in detail the beauty of Amir Temur’s Ak-Saray palace, as well as local folk customs. It would be interesting for you to know that our great rulers Amir Temur and King Henry IV of England were in diplomatic correspondence with each other.

We welcome that the contemporary generation of Europeans is also showing keen interest in Uzbekistan, as evidenced, in particular, by stable increase of the number of British, French, German and Italian tourists visiting our country.

We noted with satisfaction the augmentation of number of British citizens visiting our country by 30% in 2008. In order to support and further enlarge this trend, we created special sections on Tourism and Consular Service in our new website. I invite all of you to visit this portal at www.uzbekembassy.org where you can also find other comprehensive information about Uzbekistan with photo and video materials.

Having keen interest in promotion mutual enrichment of cultures between peoples of Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom, we realize that tourism has a special role to play in this field.  

So, I hope that our today’s meeting will help to increase tourist flows between Uzbekistan and the United Kingdom bringing our people closer to each other.  

Thank you for attention.

 18 March, 2009