MICRO-LEVEL DETERMINANTS OF TOURISM-ENTERPRISE COMPETITIVENESS IN UZBEKISTAN: ACCOMMODATION QUALITY STRUCTURE AND THE SERVICE-INFRASTRUCTURE GAP
Keywords:
tourism enterprise; accommodation quality; star classification; micro-competitiveness; service infrastructure; UzbekistanAbstract
Macro-level competitiveness indices identify weak tourist-services infrastructure as a binding constraint on Uzbekistan's competitiveness, but they do not reveal its micro-level origin in the structure and quality of the enterprise base. This study examines the accommodation and intermediation enterprise structure across the thirteen regions of Uzbekistan, focusing on hotel quality certification, the upscale segment, and the operator-agent composition of the travel trade. The central finding is a pervasive quality-certification deficit: only 7 percent of the country's hotels hold any star classification, and four- and five-star properties are confined almost entirely to three heritage regions. Quality-classified supply is strongly and positively associated with inbound demand across regions (r = 0.82), and the regions that have developed an upscale, certified segment are precisely those that capture the largest international flows. The analysis interprets the macro-level tourist-services deficit as the aggregate expression of a micro-level enterprise-quality gap, and argues that quality certification, upscale-segment development and a stronger outbound-tour-operator base are the enterprise-level levers most likely to raise Uzbekistan's service-infrastructure competitiveness.
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