MECHANISMS FOR ENHANCING THE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS OF UZBEKISTAN'S TOURISM MARKET UNDER WTO CONDITIONS

This thesis empirically investigates mechanisms for enhancing the international competitiveness of Uzbekistan's tourism market within the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework. Using OLS regression on 126 panel observations across six tourist regions (2015–2024), the study identifies WEF TTCI infrastructure sub-index (β = 0.541, p < 0.001), foreign direct investment inflows (β = 0.487, p < 0.001), WTO Trade Facilitation Index (β = 0.423, p < 0.01), and the digital tourism platform index (β = 0.398, p < 0.01) as statistically significant positive determinants of a composite Tourism Revenue Index. The model explains 89.3% of observed variance (R² = 0.893, F = 47.32, p < 0.001). WEF TTCI benchmarking reveals that Uzbekistan ranks 81st globally (2024)-behind Turkey (38th), Georgia (56th), and Armenia (63rd)-despite leading the region in cultural heritage resources (sub-score 8.2/7.0). Scenario analysis projects that full GATS commitment implementation could raise annual tourism revenue from USD 3.2 billion to USD 6.5 billion by 2030. Four mechanisms-market access liberalisation, digital transformation, national branding, and institutional reform-are proposed as an integrated policy framework.

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