President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at a meeting devoted to the state of affairs in tourism yesterday instructed to simplify the registration of foreign tourists, the President's press service reported.

According to the current procedure, tourists must register at the place of residence within three days from the date of their arrival in Uzbekistan, which creates inconvenience for them, Mirziyoyev said. Ensuring the safety of tourists is the task of law enforcement bodies, he said.

"Tourist should be travelling, and not queuing at police offices (OVIR). If we want to create jobs through tourism, it is necessary not to require paperwork from tourists, but to create facilities for them," Shavkat Mirziyoyev said.

The President instructed to shift to e-registration of tourists, with responsibility to register tourists to be borne by the police, hotels, medical institutions, private residences, individuals and legal entities that host tourists, and the tourists themselves should be relieved from this duty, he said.

E-visa system will be effective in Uzbekistan starting from July 1. The President instructed to further simplify the system through studying the world experience and make visiting the country much simpler.

The meeting noted that in 2017, Uzbekistan was visited by almost 2.7 million tourists, with most of them are those who come to see relatives, to be treated, to study, for commercial and other purposes.

"Uzbekistan's enormous tourism potential has not been tapped properly for many years. Favorable economic and organizational-legal conditions for promoting tourism have not been created, the sphere was fully neglected," the President's press service said.

The Tourism Development Committee has been tasked to double the tourists inflow and tourist services exports within the next five years.