Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- As part of the CIS Business Initiatives Week, an online forum on tourism was held, from the Republic of Uzbekistan, Deputy Chairman of the State Committee for Tourism Development Ulugbek Azamov took part in it.

The forum, chaired by Uzbekistan, was attended by representatives of the CIS Executive Committee, tourism administrations of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, as well as more than 50 travel companies, associations and airlines. In the first panel session, the forum participants were introduced to the urgent measures to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry by the governments of the Commonwealth member states, provided by the measures of support to the subjects of tourism activities in the form of tax incentives, credit holidays, subsidies and others.

Tatyana Kovaleva, representative of the CIS Executive Committee on Tourism, highly appreciated the measures taken in Uzbekistan to prevent the spread of coronavirus, as well as the comprehensive support provided by the state to the subjects of tourism activities.

It was noted that this forum has become a very timely and productive platform for “synchronizing watches”, consolidating efforts to restore tourist travel between the CIS member states. In turn, representatives of the tourism departments of the CIS member states informed the participants about the state of the tourism sector in their countries during the pandemic and plans to resume international tourist exchange.

At the second panel session, an exchange of views took place with business entities and industry experts. Representatives of the tourist business from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and others presented successful cases of business adaptation to new realities in the tourism industry, familiarized the participants with the products for the upcoming tourist season.

Also, the forum participants considered topical issues of consolidating efforts and a systemic, direct dialogue between the tourist administrations of the CIS member states in order to jointly help the tourist business find new, stable points of growth and cooperation with partners in the Commonwealth space.

In order to develop combined tour routes, the participants of the event expressed a request to the tourist administrations of the member states of the CIS Tourism Council, together with the involved ministries and departments of their countries, to take measures to ensure the accelerated and comfortable passage by tourist groups of international border checkpoints between the countries of the Commonwealth.

In addition, they discussed issues of increasing the level of safety for tourists and compliance with sanitary and hygienic standards. It was proposed to consider the unification of requirements for compliance with sanitary safety measures for tourists, as well as certification of the CIS member states for compliance with high safety standards from "COVID-19" and other epidemics.

Following the results of the forum, taking into account the interests of the tourism business, the Republic of Uzbekistan put forward an initiative to create an operational response group under the CIS Tourism Council at the level of responsible heads of tourism departments, in order to support travel companies to receive reliable information about the situation with the pandemic and in the tourism sector , new requirements for international tourist travel, as well as solve the problems associated with preparing for the new tourist season. This initiative was approved and supported by the CIS Executive Committee, representatives of tourism departments and Forum participants.

In addition, the CIS Executive Committee expressed its readiness to organize a separate information block on its official website in order to provide informational support for the work of this group - accumulation of proposals and questions from the travel industry, provision of up-to-date information on the progress of the resumption of the travel industry in the CIS countries, and more.