Publication Details
Abstract
This paper examines the strategic potential and development mechanisms of agritourism in the Bukhara region of Uzbekistan, a Central Asian destination renowned for its UNESCO-listed Silk Road heritage and a richly diversified agrarian economy. Building on a systematic review of recent peer-reviewed scholarship indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, the study integrates the conceptual foundations of agritourism with the specific socio-economic, environmental, and cultural conditions of the Bukhara region. The analysis demonstrates that the combination of long-standing agricultural traditions—cotton, silk, viticulture, dried-fruit production, karakul sheep breeding, and beekeeping—together with the region's extraordinary tangible and intangible cultural heritage, provides a uniquely favourable platform for the development of multifunctional agritourism products. However, the sector remains in an early stage of formation: only a small share of rural farms participate in tourism activities, awareness among farmers is limited, and policy instruments are fragmented across institutions. The paper argues that an integrated cluster-based mechanism, supported by digital platforms, green-economy principles, and targeted capacity-building, can transform agritourism into a meaningful driver of rural income diversification, employment creation, and cultural-heritage conservation in the Bukhara region. The findings provide policy implications for regional authorities and a starting framework for further empirical research.