NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Wyndam Hotels, one of the world’s biggest hotel franchises, plans to open new sites in Georgia, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan over the next couple of years, media reported. In total, Wyndam wants to add 35 hotels with 5,700 bedrooms to its portfolio with Georgia being the focus of this growth. It said that it will build seven new hotels with 1,300 bedrooms in Georgia.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 25 (The Bulletin) — A new 150-bedroom Ibis hotel, operated by the Accor Hotels Group, opened in Tbilisi. The Ibis Tbilisi Stadium hotel is the third-largest hotel operating in the Georgian capital. Tourism is booming in Georgia, leading to a surge in hotel construction.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
DEC. 22 (The Conway Bulletin) — UAE’s government-owned budget airline FlyDubai will start flying to Tashkent, another sign that the Uzbek tourist industry is booming. Uzbek officials announced the deal after meeting UAE officials. FlyDubai, which targets tourists, will take over the Dubai-Tashkent route from Emirates Airline, which is more business-focused.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019
TASHKENT/JAN. 7 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will throw open its doors to millions of more potential tourists from Feb. 1 after the government decreed that citizens of 45 developed countries can enter without a visa.
By scrapping visa requirements Uzbekistan hopes to give tourism a major boost and also to signal that the country is open for foreign investors. It also comes less than a week after Uzbekistan dropped exit visas for its citizens, a move set into motion by a decree signed by Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev in 2017.
Mr Mirziyoyev has been Uzbekistan’s president since September 2016 when he took over from the reclusive and authoritarian Islam Karimov. Karimov had ruled for 25 years since the breakup of the Soviet Union until a heart attack killed him. Under Karimov, Uzbekistan had been closed off and it had been difficult and expensive for both tourists and people on business trips to get visas.
Citizens from a handful of countries, including Russia and other Former Soviet countries had already had visa-free access to Uzbekistan. That has now been extended to include European countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Brazil.
Israelis, Indonesians, Japanese, Malaysians, South Koreans, Turks and citizens of Singapore were given visa-free access in 2018.
Last year, Uzbekistan attracted 5.3m tourists, up from 2.6m in 2017. That number is now expected to boom with tourists flocking to see fabled sights such as the Registan in Samarkand and Bukhara, regarded as the best-preserved of the old khanate towns.
Tour operators welcomed the removal of the visa system although there were also words of caution.
Caroline Eden, co-author of the travel and cookbook Samarkand, said excessive development will backfire.
“The risk is that the infrastructure will not cope. Sites at Bukhara and Samarkand are so precious that a steady and measured approach would be wisest.,” She said.
“A rush to build hotels, little trains around monuments and too many tour buses will ruin the very appeal of this marvellous country.”
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019
DEC. 20 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan aim to create a so-called “Silk Visa” next year that will allow foreigners to visit both countries, Acting First Deputy Chairman of the Uzbek State Committee for Tourism, Ulugbek Qosimhojaev, told reporters in Tashkent. Mr Qosimhojaev said that the aim was to boost tourism. Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Turkey were also reportedly interested in the project.
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>>This story was first published in issue 395 of The Conway Bulletin on Dec. 23 2018
OCT. 8 (The Conway Bulletin) – France’s Bouygues has signed a deal with the Uzbek government to build a 100m euro “tourist zone” near Bukhara, Uzbek media reported. The deal, announced during a visit by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Paris, has not been commented on by Bouygues, one of France’s biggest constructors.
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>>This story was first published in issue 388 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 17 2018
TBILISI/SEPT. 28 The shabby-chic mosaic of Tbilisi taxis will be a thing of the past if the mayor’s office gets its way.
From next October all taxis will have to be white, the mayor’s office ordered. Although it didn’t specify which model of car taxis had to be, it also said that taxis will have to have doors opening onto the rear seats and to be left-hand drive.
“Some visual standards for taxis in the capital will be mandatory from October 1, 2019,” said Tbilisi mayor Kakha Kaladze. “!We decided on white as the mandatory colour for Tbilisi taxis from October next year.”
Taxi driver associations, though, said that the new colour regulations will impose costs that will just force up prices for clients.
Tourism to Tbilisi has taken off over the past 12 months and the authorities have been trying to respond by smartening up the city and professionalising its taxi service.
Earlier this year, the Tbilisi city authorities imposed registration requirements for taxi drivers who have been more used to operating with light regulations.
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>>This story was first published in issue 387 of The Conway Bulletin on Oct. 1 2018
JAN. 31 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps casting admiring glances at its key trading partner Turkey, Azerbaijan said it wants to develop tourism links with Arab states.
Turkey has successfully run a series of advertising campaigns aimed at the Middle East’s growing middle classes who want to spend their disposable income, and time, holidaying along the relatively cool Turkish Black Sea coast and shopping along Istanbul’s streets.
At a signing ceremony to promote tourism in Azerbaijan, Elshan Rahimov, chairman of the Azerbaijan-Arab Countries Cooperation said that Azerbaijan was fast becoming the holiday destination of choice for many discerning Arabs looking for shopping and culture.
He said that last year the number of tourists arriving from Saudi Arabia had increased by 450%, from Oman by 740% and from the UAE by 190%.
The growth in tourism from the Gulf states is also helping to boost Georgia’s tourism to peak levels
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>>This story was first published in issue 360 of The Conway Bulletin
FEB. 1 (The Conway Bulletin) – Construction started in Tbilisi on a 5-star Hilton hotel in the former Soviet-era offices of the agriculture ministry in the centre of the city. The hotel will have 200 rooms and will cost $45m to build. Tbilisi has been short of hotel rooms, especially at the upper-end of the market. There has been a hotel construction boom over the past few years as supply tries to catch up with demand.
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>>This story was first published in issue 360 of The Conway Bulletin
JAN 2 (The Conway Bulletin) — m2, a subsidiary of BGEO, bought a 50% stake in what it described as a boutique hotel in Tbilisi for $4.1m (Jan. 2). The unnamed hotel is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2019 . BGEO is the investment arm of Bank of Georgia and is being spun off into a separate listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2018. Tourism in Georgia is booming. The sector is concentrated on Tbilisi and its rise has spurred a hotel-building boom.
— This story was first published on Jan. 5 2018 in issue 356 of The Conway Bulletin