Speeches and Transcripts
Press Briefing by Thomas Tait, U.S. Tourism Expert
Republican Press Center, Dushanbe, Tajikistan
May 30, 2008
Ms. McKennan (Public Affairs Officer): Mr. Tait has served for 13 years as the Commissioner of Tourism for the State of Nevada, so he has a lot of experience in running tourism issues. We invited him here to Tajikistan as part of ongoing exchanges that we conduct with the people of Tajikistan. Previous he became acquainted with Tajik citizens who traveled to the city of Reno, Nevada to discuss how to develop tourism as an industry. He’s been in Dushanbe now for a week, and he has met with private tour operators, he has met with members of your government, and he has also met with members of civil society to discuss how we can move tourism forward in Tajikistan, what are some of the problems, and what are also some of the opportunities.
With that I’ll turn it over to Mr. Tait. When you pose a question, please identify yourself, your name and your organization that you represent.
Mr. Tait: Thank you, Jackie. Good afternoon.
As Jackie mentioned, I was invited by the State Department to come and evaluate some of the aspects of tourism in your country after having had the pleasure of working with two groups of residents of Tajikistan in the State of Nevada.
Many of you are probably not familiar with the name Nevada, but I’m sure all of you have heard of our largest city, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, of course, is the number one tourism destination in the United States, the third most popular tourism destination in the world, and I was very very pleased to have served as the Minister of Tourism for the State of Nevada for almost 13 years.
Tourism accounts for about $35 billion in economic development in the State of Nevada annually and results in several billion dollars in taxes that go directly to the government. So for those reasons the State Department believed that it was important to bring somebody to Tajikistan who would be able to discuss not only the general aspects of tourism, but the practical aspects of tourism financing and tourism development as well.
From what I’ve seen and from the people that I’ve met with over the past week, it’s very very clear that Tajikistan has the four principal ingredients that will allow it to compete successfully in the world tourism marketplace. It has remarkable scenery, it has great history, it is culturally significant, and it has outstanding recreational opportunities. As an added ingredient it has friendly, warm, hospitable and very convivial people.
Having said that on the plus side, there are some things that need to be worked on if Tajikistan is going to appear on the tourism map. In order to create visitation to Tajikistan, and more importantly, to encourage people who come here the first time to come back and to tell their friends, certain things have to lead towards a positive first impression.
The first impression of Tajikistan does not start in appearance, it does not start when you’re in a recreational setting on a raft or a kayak, it does not start when you’re skiing or hunting. It starts when you try to find out where you would like to go on your holiday or on your adventure travel. Ninety-four percent of the qualified traveling public from which you would draw your customers use the internet to find out where they would like to go and how they would like to get there. Seventy-eight percent of those people actually book their travel through the internet. Almost 50 percent of those book their hotel the same way. Tajikistan has no web address.
The second thing that needs to be worked on is the visa regime that is being used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. While we agree that it’s very important to have secure borders and to know who is coming in and leaving your country, and we speak from experience having gone through September 11th in the United States, even in the light of September 11th the United States has 27 nations that it allows visa-free access to our country. Certainly through technology and through other known resources, Tajikistan can adopt a policy to ease the visa regime and make people from friendly nations have access to your country. Requiring a letter of invitation, requiring a 45-60 day wait for the return of the visa, putting those kinds of restrictions on travelers is not a way to encourage tourism.
I will be meeting with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately following this press conference to discuss some of these points and see if there are ways that we may be able to assist in the easing of the visa restrictions.
The third area that we need to discuss is there are a minimum of nine federal agencies in Tajikistan that have some responsibility of the management of tourism. Those agencies that I’ve identified in just a few moments are Foreign Affairs, Finance, Economic Development, Transportation, of course the Committee on Tourism, Security, Environmental Protection and Agriculture, and Cultural Affairs.
In the United States and in many cases this group of ministry officials is called the Tourism Policy Council. They are instructed by the President or Prime Minister to meet as frequently as necessary to assist in the development of solid tourism policy. Tajikistan has no such Tourism Policy Council.
In virtually every nation that has advanced tourism, there is a synergy that is either required by law or acted upon independently by both government and the private sector where the two bodies meet regularly to discuss how they can interact and improve the tourism experience. Governments and the tourism industry are inextricably linked, more than any other industry except for defense. The government owns virtually all aspects of the infrastructure related to tourism and the private sector owns the hotels, the restaurants, the attractions, and they are responsible for moving tourists once they arrive in your country from place to place.
For tourism to work successfully in Tajikistan there must be a public/private partnership comprised of the Committee on Tourism and Sports and Youth, and representatives of the private sector -- the hotels, the restaurants, the attractions, the transportation companies. Currently there is no such public/private partnership.
In short, I believe that the future for Tajikistan’s tourism entry into the world marketplace has some bumps in the road before it will be able to get there, but I think there is enough of an attraction in Tajikistan to warrant their entry into that marketplace. Now we must make the bureaucracy assist the private sector in seeing that occur.
I’ll take any questions you have.
Question (TV Safina): I would like to know, you visited Tajikistan, you saw some of these things, you’ve studied towns and so on. I’d like to know where you have you been.
Mr. Tait: I’ve been around Dushanbe. I have not traveled the entire country. I would like to, but there certainly was not enough time for me to be able to do that and hold the meetings that we’ve held over the past week.
Question (Vecherniy Dushanbe): Are you here just to advise and recommend something, or will there be any further investments made in the tourism sector?
Mr. Tait: I think it’s clear that I’m here to make some recommendations. As far as an investment, I think that it’s unlikely to see investment come into Tajikistan from Western Europe or from the United States unless the visa regime is adjusted.
Question (Asia Plus): Can you try to forecast what amount of money Tajikistan can get from tourism development?
Mr. Tait: For each dollar that a tourist spends in Tajikistan, about seven dollars will be realized in economic impact. I our state, we realize about $35 billion in tourism per year. In the United States in 2007, $758 billion was realized. That’s direct tourism expenditures.
So nobody is trying to project that you're going to be realizing that kind of economic benefit, but tourism is the fastest way to start an economy moving forward. It adds improvements to infrastructure that other industries can take advantage of. It makes use of a skilled work force. It employs and trains new employees for new skills. It’s not as much fun as being a journalist, but it’s fun.
Question (Jomea): At the beginning you had some information on Tajikistan and you had an opportunity to learn something. Then you came here and you saw things closer. So which negative impression came first?
Mr. Tait: The first negative impression, quite frankly, was that I got a call from the Visa Service in Washington, D.C. that said I had to get a letter of request from the Ministry in order to process my visa. I’ve traveled to close to 70 countries around the world and I’ve never been asked to get a letter of invitation from your government.
Question (TV Safina): In what other countries have you been able to share your expertise?
Mr. Tait: I started 11 years ago in Bulgaria and from that I was invited back by then President Stoyanov to do two or three more visits into Bulgaria. I have assisted with Poland in Warsaw and Krakow, in Montenegro, in Pogariza and on the coast in Budva. I’ve worked in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Pushkin, Ude, Irkutsk, Chita, Siberia. I’ve worked in Shanghai and Hsian, China; and in Romania. In Romania we had communications with Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. And I’ve worked in the Republic of Georgia and Ukraine. Over the past 12 years.
Question (Radio BBC): What do you think does corruption prevent tourism?
Mr. Tait: That’s a very good question. I moved to Las Vegas 37 years ago, almost 38 years ago. At that time Las Vegas was still controlled by the Mafia. At least the hotel casinos were. Some things took place to eliminate that control and now the Mafia has no control whatsoever for the last 25 years in Las Vegas, but it was very corrupting at that time. That’s not to say that the political structure of Nevada was corrupt, it was just that the Mafia had financial control of much of the industry. I think that one of the contributors to eliminate the corruption that was present was the fact that more and more tourists were being invited and coming to the state and having a good time, and it became a negative for them to have a corrupt state.
Question (Vecherniy Dushanbe): It sounds good that you have big experience in so many places. It means that you have a certain aim of coming here. Americans are not used to wasting money. Does it mean that there is hope that something will be developed here?
Mr. Tait: That’s true. Thank you.
Question (Vecherniy Dushanbe): Can you give us some examples of how you think Tajikistan still has a chance at tourism?
Mr. Tait: It’s not still has a chance. I think Tajikistan has a road ahead of it that is a good road. I think the light at the end of the tunnel is not necessarily an approaching train. There are many positive aspects to your country and one of those is your people. You have warm, friendly, hospitable people. And you have culture, rich history, recreational opportunities that are unbelievable, and a great culture.
(Question) Radio BBC: So it’s not the first and the last visit to Tajikistan here?
Mr. Tait: Oh, no. Absolutely not.
Ms. McKennan: It is the first visit here, but not necessarily the last.
Mr. Tait: That’s correct.
Question (Vecherniy Dushanbe): They found 400 imprints of dinosaurs in Shimkent national park. These giants lived in ice age. We can get to this area only on horseback. If the construction of hotels, and other infrastructure starts the environment will be damaged, the nature will be spoiled. That is degrading. People doing these tours, they have money and they like comfort. So what can we do in this respect? How can we put this together? Tourists with no damage to nature.
Mr. Tait: That’s a very very good point. I served on the Grand Canyon Board of Directors for six years. One of our biggest concerns was how do you protect and preserve and also allow access to one of the most beautiful parks in the world. While there are people who would, through benign neglect or through just uncaring feelings do something to cause injury to a park-like setting. The majority of people, we found, will care for a park-like setting if they’re instructed to do so. In fact our research and research around the world shows that if you have controlled access to a park-like setting, the setting actually improves than if it was completely uncontrolled and people were just able to wander through by themselves.
You have a very active Ministry of the Environment. I’m sure that working with the Committee on Tourism and the other agencies, the Environmental Ministry would be able to set forth guidelines that would protect and preserve the parks and would allow access.
Question (Journalism student): I study at Journalism Department of Russian-Tajik Slavonic University. You said a little about visa problems and about that we haven’t enough information on the internet. Can you point out some other problems that create barriers in tourism development system?
Mr. Tait: I don’t know if I completely understand.
Ms. McKennan: Are there any other problems besides the ones you enumerated?
Mr. Tait: Yes. The air service is not good. There are not enough cities that are being served by the air service. The roads are in poor condition. But I think that those are things that if there is an advance in the tourism promotional activities and people ease the visa restrictions, those kinds of things will be fixed.
For example the roads are not just used by tourists. There are three separate categories of business that use road. Tourism, trade, and commerce. So the roads need to be repaired regardless of tourism.
Improved air service doesn’t just serve tourists, it serves people who are living here and want to be tourists elsewhere.
So there are several issues that need to be addressed, but the primary issues are the ones that I enumerated.
Question (Radio BBC): Do you have any local tourists? What is the share of local versus international tourists?
Ms. McKennan: Foreign tourists versus local tourists from the State of Nevada.
Mr. Tait: Not from the State of Nevada. We do foreign tourists versus other state domestic tourists, but we don’t break it out by tourists who are just from Nevada.
Question (Radio BBC): What is the percentage of domestic tourism?
Mr. Tait: We have about 20 percent of our visitors are international travelers. Of that, 12 percent are actually overseas travelers, long distance travelers. We have two borders, you have four. Ours are Canada and Mexico. You have four borders. So our overseas travelers are from Japan, from the United Kingdom, from France, from Australia. Those are the long distance travelers that come in to Nevada. Of that, 12 percent of those are overseas travelers. Eight percent are from Canada and Mexico. The balance are domestic. And 15 percent of those are first-timers. Eighty-five percent are repeat visitors.
Question (Journalism student): Does the national economy of Tajikistan allow touring development? Tajikistan should rely on other states, on other countries who are more advanced in this field?
Mr. Tait: I don’t understand the question.
Ms. McKennan: I think what he’s getting at is, to develop tourism in Tajikistan will it require an influx of capital from international donors, or can Tajikistan, based on the state of the economy now, begin to develop tourism.
Mr. Tait: I think a combination of both.
Question (Radio BBC): What is the advantage of regional security?
Mr. Tait: We don’t have the same kind of tensions in the United States that you have on your borders, but we do have a difference in the way that people from Canada are treated as opposed to people from Mexico. People from Canada have free access to the United States any time they want. People from Mexico need a visa. So we understand I think exactly the kind of border issues that you’re going through on your southern border and your western border. But those issues can be dealt with.
Thank you.