Role of agritourism in sustainable rural development in Uzbekistan: insights from the Italian experience

Agritourism is based on the landscape, tradition and family-based farming from which may emerge a complete competitive tourism product. This paper evaluated the potential role of agritourism activities, their contribution to the sustainable rural development in Uzbekistan, considering the tourism potential of rural areas. The paper also analysed the long dating Italian experience on the farm rural tourism activities and the rural development policy providing incentives to the diversification of farming activities. The lessons learnt from the Italian case analysis provide some suggestion for the rural development policy design in Uzbekistan.