Publication Details
Abstract
sustainable development at tourist destinations in historic cities is crucial. This article analyses the role of Samarkand, one of Uzbekistan’s principal cultural and heritage tourist destinations in road transport system development. The research work is of great importance due to the reforming transport, modernisation of infrastructure and growing tourists inflow in this region. The first point is an attempt to explore the impact of various transportation modes (i.e. air, rail, and highways) on key tourism development indicators in Samarkand such as tourist arrivals, accessibility, length of stay and economic activities due to tourism business. The study is relying on publicly available statistical figures of the respective years, as well as data on regional tourism activity and transport infrastructure for that period. The approach integrates features of descriptive–comparative analysis with degrees of correlation analysis to determine the relations while being correlatively interdependent between transport availability and tourism expansion. The results reveal that transport infrastructure connection (especially high-speed rail and air connectivity) is positively associated with tourist flows and destination attractiveness at a statistically significant level. The transport improvements also help to diversify the tourism supply and reduce the seasonality effect. It adds to the academic research on transport–tourism relationship by offering empirical evidence from a Silk Road heritage city. Policy implications for evidence-based transport and tourism governance in the region are provided.