Tourism is one of the fastest-growing and most visible sectors of the global economy, contributing significantly to boosting a nation’s economy. Currently, tourism-led economic growth considering sustainable approaches is becoming increasingly important in public policy. Recent urban and regional studies have begun to focus on the sustainability of tourism from social, economic, environmental, and cultural perspectives. The research aims to identify the most important issues and barriers to sustainable tourism development in Uzbekistan and proposes the most effective culturalization strategies to overcome those barriers. This paper involves the application of Global RPM (Globalization, Rationality, Professionalism, and Morality) analysis in combination with SANEL HERMES (Sightseeing, Admission paying, Night touring, Experiencing, Learning, Healing, Enjoying, Rest and Relaxing, Memento shopping, Eating and Drinking, and Staying) model based on data from a variety of sources, including literature review, participation interview, tourist survey, and expert questionnaire to identify and classify influencing factors that show existing barriers to sustainable tourism in Uzbekistan. Finally, a set of culturalization strategies is proposed, evaluated, and ranked by experts using a Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix. The results of the survey have shown that tourism activities are currently not sustainable in a satisfactory manner. However, if the policymakers consider the relevant strategies and take this study into account, as well as its findings, then Uzbekistan can be made more attractive in terms of sustainable tourism.

The primary aspiration of this paper is to learn about the effects of economic growth, energy consumption, agriculture and irrigation water consumption and agriculture productivity on environmental pollution in five countries of Central Asia. The data cover the period from 1992 to 2020 by applying panel data models, namely the Panel FMOLS, Panel DOLS and Panel ARDL-PMG approaches. The results indicate that there is a positive long-term impact of economic growth, water productivity, energy consumption and electricity production on CO2 emissions while agriculture value added and trade openness have a negative and statistically significant influence on CO2 emissions in Central Asia. Country specific short-run coefficients from Panel ARDL reveal that energy consumption is the main driver for rise in the level of CO2 emissions in the countries under the study. Indeed, country level analysis generates unique nexus correlation among agriculture, energy and environmental degradation in each country of Central Asia.