Micro-Level Determinants of Tourism-Enterprise Competitiveness in Uzbekistan: Accommodation Quality Structure and the Service-Infrastructure Gap
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59261/jedvb.v4i2.85Keywords:
tourism enterprise, accommodation quality, star classification, micro-competitiveness, UzbekistanAbstract
Macro-level competitiveness indices identify weak tourist-services infrastructure as a binding constraint on Uzbekistan’s tourism competitiveness, but the existing literature largely macro-level or demand-side in orientation does not reveal the micro-level, enterprise-structure origins of this deficit; closing this gap is the motivation for the present study. The objective of the research is threefold: to quantify the quality-certification structure of the accommodation stock across Uzbekistan’s thirteen regional units, to test whether quality-classified supply is associated with inbound international demand, and to characterize the composition of the travel-trade intermediation base. Methodologically, the study is a quantitative, descriptive-correlational, cross-sectional analysis of secondary enterprise data for the 2023 reference year, compiled from the official registers of the Statistical Agency of the Republic of Uzbekistan; descriptive statistics and Pearson product-moment correlation analysis are applied across the thirteen regional units. The central finding is a pervasive quality-certification deficit: only about 7 percent of the country’s roughly 1,098 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 (r = 0.820, p < 0.001, n = 13). The findings imply that quality certification, upscale-segment development and a stronger tour-operator base are high-leverage, comparatively low-cost enterprise-policy instruments for raising Uzbekistan’s service-infrastructure competitiveness and dispersing demand beyond the heritage core. The main limitation is the cross-sectional design, which precludes causal inference and motivates future panel and firm-level research.
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