OPTIMISING THE TERRITORIAL ALLOCATION OF INVESTMENT IN REGIONAL TOURISM INFRASTRUCTURE (THE CASE OF JIZZAKH REGION)

This paper examines how investment in tourism infrastructure should be distributed across the districts of a region, using the Jizzakh Region of Uzbekistan as a case study. Official district-level data on fixed capital investment for 2025 and January–September 2026, population and the activity of accommodation facilities are used to compare where capital is being invested with where tourism demand and state tourism priorities are located. The analysis shows a strong spatial mismatch in 2025: districts that host almost nine-tenths of officially accommodated visitors received less than a quarter of regional investment, while the largest share went to a district with marginal tourist activity. A transparent three-pillar allocation rule is proposed that combines current demand, designated development zones and a population-based service component, and is tested under three weighting scenarios. The dissimilarity index between the recommended and actual distributions fell from 32.5 to 22.2 percentage points between 2025 and 2026, indicating that the allocation is moving in the right direction but is not yet aligned. Practical recommendations for regional investment planning are formulated.