24/08/10 - Titanic Future of Small Hotels

Дата публикации: Jan 19, 2012 1:45:40 PM

Mini hotels are the most thriving segment of Uzbekistan’s travel service market

Since long time and firmly mini hotels found their niche in the world industry of hospitality, they also became an important element of hotel business. According to the experts, small hotels share not less than 40 percent of the world market of accommodating service. In the conditions of independent development of our country, expansion of entrepreneurial activity in sphere of tourism, launching of first guest houses, and then private mini hotels and hotels of tourist class became another illustration of prosperity of small forms of hotel business.

A little can go a long way Stable growth of the tourist stream to Uzbekistan for the last fifteen years, especially in spring and autumn, at the height of the tourist season, led to the abrupt increase of hotel rooms owing to new mini hotels. Strictly speaking, since recent time mini hotels started increasing the quantity of places. Today, it is no more exception that small hotels have 50 and more places. Rather small volume of investments necessary to found a guest house, high occupancy and low expenses have made this segment of commercial real estate quite attractive to the private investor. According to NC O’zbekturizm, nowadays more than 240 hotels and other means of accommodating operate in the country, 70 percent of which are mini hotels and guest houses.Hotel as the continuation of excursion Appeared for the first time as the alternative to usual hotels, small hotels today intended for small amount of lodgers, actively compete with their big-in-size colleagues. Advantages of such hotels include convenient location, as a rule, in the central part of towns, price that is rather cheaper in comparison with in big hotels with similar quality of service. Management of small hotels demonstrates a nice flexibility in the price policy. And it concerns not only tour operators providing hotels with regular occupancy, but lodgers as well who independently reserve hotel room.

Yet the main feature and, perhaps, the principal advantage of mini hotels, especially located in historical towns of Uzbekistan, are their attractive national design and architecture giving visitors – tourists, businessmen and other travelers the opportunity to get acquainted with special features of local life and to feel the warmth of genuine Uzbek hospitality.

“In many cases, especially in the hotels positioned as caravanserai and yurt camp, the stay of tourists is not limited with necessary and standard hotel services,” considers the expert-auditor on certification of tourist and hotel services Farida Boyko.

According to her, along with comfortable residing and qualitative food mainly consisting of local cuisine, tourists are suggested various cultural program, folklore representations. Sometimes, various lectures and meetings with interesting people are organized.

Shortly speaking, such mini hotels become not ordinary means for accommodating, but an important part of the national tourist product. Foreign tourists set their choice in Uzbekistan because of the unique cultural heritage of the country, various types of the arts and traditional crafts, folklore, ethnic cuisine and many other things.

Sirojiddin Doniyor, UT