Tourism education in an emerging digital economy: World experience and perspectives in Uzbekistan

Worldwide tourism education is being promoted by various national and international agencies to achieve sustainable development goals. The presence of tourism education is tremendously growing in international universities. The results suggest that as per the academicians alongside with tourism professionals, the tourism education is highly relevant for economic development. It also shows that tourism education in Uzbekistan, is general a matter of course and specialization-based tourism programs are near to absent. This article is not focused on the criticism of reforms in legislation and their functionality, but rather on introducing possibilities which may present an alternative to developing and realizing projects along the lines of innovation in Uzbekistan. The question is how vocational training schools and institutes of higher education, specifically training programmes in tourism and hospitality, have changed and are changing now that the new laws on education, on vocational training. What kind of future can these institutions look forward to, what will they be teaching and in what conditions, especially, in time and after pandemic CoViD-19? This question applies equally to theoretical and practical training.