Accommodation Capacity as a Driver Of Inbound Tourism: Panel Evidence from the Regions of Uzbekistan and a Quality-Anchored Policy Framework for Hotel Development

Purpose. Uzbekistan seeks a multiple increase in tourism exports and invests simultaneously in hotels, transport, catering and heritage sites. Policy makers need evidence on which elements of tourism infrastructure are most closely associated with inbound tourist flows, and on how capacity growth can be combined with service quality. Methodology. A fixed-effects panel regression was estimated on official statistics for 14 territorial units of Uzbekistan (the Republic of Karakalpakstan, twelve regions and Tashkent city) over 2017–2024 (N = 112). The number of inbound tourists served in a region was regressed on collective accommodation bed capacity, road density, the number of catering establishments and the number of tourist and heritage sites. The fixed-effects specification was selected by the Hausman test, and standard errors were clustered by region. Findings. The model explains about 71% of the variation in inbound tourism (R² = 0.712). Accommodation capacity is the only infrastructure factor with a statistically significant positive coefficient (β = 4.206, p = 0.07): an additional 1,000 beds is associated with about 4,200 more inbound tourists per year, corresponding to an elasticity of about 0.20 at sample means. Transport, catering and heritage indicators have positive but insignificant coefficients. Implications. Accommodation development should be treated as a policy priority for expanding inbound flows; however, given that only a small fraction of hotels are classified, capacity growth needs to be quality-anchored. The paper proposes adding sustainability indicators based on Green Key and ISO 21401:2018 to hotel classification, an integral hotel competitiveness index and the GRIN-Q framework (Green – Responsible – Innovative – Native, plus a Quality management contour).