Tourism- the key to cultural coherence
Born in Samarkand, the top tourism city of Uzbekistan, I am fortunate enough to have my both parents to share my achievements with. However, the cost of these achievements never winds away from my memories, as I still remember the periods when my father used to work long nights to provide me with the proper education repeatedly saying that " Education is the long-term investment".
As a freshman who secured the 4th place at "Silk Road" IUT among thousands of applicants, currently, I am a vice president at Students' Union and a part-time volunteer teacher at University's language centre where I teach the English language. The university life is fairly busy yet, I actively make my time for ecotourism movements, fundraising charities and speaking clubs, to name a few of my interests. For example, recently I have attended the two-day training course called "Leadership Workshop".
From early ages, I have had passionate interest in learning different languages as well as conversating with the native speakers of those languages and it was, probably, the main reason for me to bond my future career with tourism and hospitality industry. Honestly, for me tourism is the soft power between countries because they all need the peace to lure tourists; therefore, have to set the cultural coherence as the first priority . Unfortunately, Uzbekistan has a long way to go in this sphere and poor marketing and management can be the two explanations out of many. As I study marketing in the sphere of tourism, I carry on many researches on the field in order to propose some game-changing solutions to the government. Now, I am mostly focusing on Digital Marketing and Tourism Standards, the two possible momentums, I asume, for the industry if managed well in Uzbekistan.
I wish to further my knowledge about my career in the USA since this country remains the successful tourism role model in the globe and has a good reputation to share. I believe that to work in tourism sphere one has to become a tourist first and the Global UGRAD program certainly does offer such opportunity. One semester in the USA will definitely assist my future career by providing prospective tourism insights and endeavours that will come handy back in my home country. Taking an eminent American education, even for 4 months, may help me to gain both theoretical and practical knowledge on digital marketing and tourism standards. Furthermore, this student exchange program seems to me as a perfect chance to improve my cross-cultural leadership skills because of involvement in the community works and culture-oriented events where I can meet people from diverse ethnicities. This, in turn, will be a great school for me because I see myself as a manager of international company in the future.
Coming back to my home country, I will definitely share the experience with others and frame all the knowledge gained within the semester into a proposal to our government.I believe that tourism actuals in the USA can be great potentials in Uzbekistan and I will be the one to search and utilize them.