From January to November, 7.3 million foreign citizens visited Uzbekistan for tourism purposes, reported the Statistics Agency.
Compared to the same month last year, the number of tourists increased by 1.15 million people, or nearly 19%. In November, 791.5 thousand people crossed the border.
Kyrgyzstan topped the list with 2.12 million visitors, including 253 thousand who arrived in the last month. With a slight margin, Tajikistan secured the second place in the annual ranking with 244.6 thousand tourists in November.
As before, Kazakhstan rounded out the top three with 1.38 million people (including 118 thousand in November). Following them are Russia with 741.2 thousand tourists (54.5 thousand in November) and Turkmenistan with 171.2 thousand (about 26 thousand for the month).
Among distant foreign countries, Turkey maintains its leadership with 108 thousand people, including 12.3 thousand in November. From China, 66.6 thousand tourists arrived (8.9 thousand in November), India with 63.4 thousand (7.5 thousand), and South Korea with 39 thousand (2.5 thousand). Afghanistan also made it to the top 10 with 38 thousand.
Additionally, 165 thousand foreigners visited the republic for commercial purposes, nearly three times more than last year. The majority of them (89.2 thousand) came from Turkmenistan.
Just over 36 thousand business trips were made by citizens of Tajikistan, and 32.2 thousand by residents of Afghanistan. There were 1.1 thousand commercial visits each from Turkey and China.
Moreover, 98.8 thousand people arrived in Uzbekistan for medical treatment, which is 77% more than last year. The overwhelming majority of medical tourists came from Tajikistan—75.4 thousand.
Another 11.3 thousand people arrived for medical purposes from Kazakhstan and 9.2 thousand from Kyrgyzstan. This segment also included 1,746 Russian and 794 Turkmen citizens.
Previously, Spot reported that experts expect a new boom in "card tourism" from Russia to the CIS countries in 2025.