On August 17, representatives of Uzbekistan Railways met with representatives of the Association of private tourism agencies of Uzbekistan, the press service of the association Spot told.
Earlier, on August 13, tour operators put forward several proposals that would help them in their work. All issues were resolved in favor of intensive tourism development.
Group requests for seat reservation
Proposal: cancel the requirement to provide a copy of tourist passports when purchasing train tickets. The offer is relevant, due to the fact that it is not always possible to present a copy of passports due to the late formation of a tourist group or the prohibition in the legislation of certain countries to provide copies of passports to third parties.
Decision: From September 1, when receiving group applications for booking seats and issuing travel documents, the provision of copies of passports will be canceled. But at the same time, the approved list with data: full name. passenger, passport data, date of birth, country of residence is still provided in the prescribed manner in two copies.
Parking time in Samarkand
Proposal: to increase the parking of high-speed trains on the Tashkent-Bukhara-Tashkent route from 5 to 10 minutes in order to create favorable conditions for boarding large tourist groups in Samarkand.
Decision: starting from August 20, trains №762/761, № 766/765 on the route Tashkent - Bukhara - Tashkent will stay up to 10 minutes at the Samarkand station.
Separate cash desks for travel companies
Proposal: consider the creation of a special department at the reservation department, which will deal with the booking of railway tickets for legal entities, including travel companies, providing it with a landline telephone and other means of communication.
Solution: from August 15, on the basis of the preliminary ticket office of the "Tashkent-Central" station, specialized cash desks have been created to serve tourist organizations, a separate employee will deal exclusively with requests from tourist organizations.
At the station "Tashkent-Central" it is planned to open 4 ticket offices to service tourist organizations. Booking and issuing tickets will be in one place. A system for accepting applications in electronic form will also be introduced.
Cancellation of additional fees
Suggestion: consider the issue of canceling additional fees when paying for a railway ticket by transfer, which do not apply in the case of purchasing e-tickets by credit cards and cash
Decision: from August 14, the additional charge for each place issued from the reservation will be canceled.
Reduce the load on Afrosiab trains.
Proposal: consider the possibility of repairing the Nasaf, Registon, Shark trains with the creation of comfortable conditions, an air conditioning system, which will help to significantly relieve the load on the Afrosiab train.
Solution: on the basis of the Tashkent Carriage-Repair Construction Plant, work will be introduced to repair and modernize five sitting cars with a total approximation of 240 seats. These cars are planned to be put into operation by the end of September. These seats will be provided only to travel companies in the event of a shortage of seats on the high-speed Afrosiab trains.
Extracting group documents on one form
Proposal: Introduce a system for issuing group travel documents. Accelerate the introduction of a full-fledged online sale of railway tickets, because after purchasing electronic tickets, tour operators must fill out strict reporting forms directly at the railway ticket offices.
Solution: from September 1, an extract of group travel documents on one form will be introduced. In addition, it became known that Uzbekistan Railways is working on opening a single window for legal entities - this will allow issuing travel documents on the website without the participation of third parties.
Expressway to Khiva
Suggestion: to establish high-speed communication in the direction Tashkent-Bukhara-Khiva.
Solution: Negotiations are now underway with the Spanish company TALGO and the Korean company HYUNDAI for the purchase of new electric trains to be assigned to the Tashkent - Bukhara - Khiva route.
Track construction works have been completed on the Urgench - Khiva section. Work continues on the construction of buildings (Khiva station, 3 hotel complexes and the Khiva Locomativ park).