Monitoring Desk: The Two-Day International Samarkand Guides Forum was held on January 11 to 12 which was attended by international trainers and experts.
This was first Forum of its nature in Samarkand for gathering international experts, experienced tour guides, academia and students of tourism industry at one platform for learning experience.
Tour Guide Forum was designed with a futuristic approach to produce international standards tour guides in Uzbekistan for throbbing tourism market of the country.
Uzbekistan has become one of the top destinations in Central Asia and tourism industry is playing a pivotal role in its economy and expanding tourism industry needs more skill force, particularly tour guides and hoteliers.
The initiative was taken by International Award winning organisation of Uzbekistan— Silk Road Destinations (Central Asia Tours Incoming Agency– C.A.T.I.A.).
The main objective of the forum was to discuss the main issues of the profession and the responsibilities of tour guides  who are cultural ambassadors of any country.
The constant capacity building of tour guides to meet international standards and requirements is always an important and serious issue for international tour operators and this forum discussed all such important issues.
The uestion of how the guides in tourism market meet the requirements and the standard in rapidly changing world was addressed by international experts including Michail Shamshidov (Get Guide -online marketplace for guides-Uzbekistan), Sjannie Hulsman (East Guides West-tourism development consultancy-Nederlands), Sergey Makarov (Sun House Team -Kyrgyzstan), Sergey Danilov (Russia) and Ravshan Turakulov (Silk Road Destinations-Uzbekistan).
The initiative of the Samarkand tour operator Silk Road Destinations and partners represented by GetGuide.uz, SunHouse.com, EastguidesWest.com, the brand Delicious Uzbekistan, SamSIFL was one of the first examples of public-private cooperation in the tourism industry of Uzbekistan.
The program of the forum contained several discussions in the theme of transformation of tourism market and the profession of guides and nine master classes were held for better awareness of tendencies and instruments of professional approach.
Speakers from the Netherlands, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan expressed their views on what are the criteria of successful guides, the development of corporate tourism, digital instruments to facilitate (progress) the profession, important aspects of gastronomic and winery tourism etc.
Experienced guides of the tourist centers in Uzbekistan, local and international experts as well as students and teachers of the Institute of Foreign Languages participated in the Forum.
