Tourism on the Silk Road (TITF 2026): Dates, Tickets & Venue (Tashkent)

Three days in late November, and Uzbekistan’s tourism trade gathers under one roof. The 31st International Exhibition Tourism on the Silk Road, known as TITF 2026, runs in Tashkent from November 25 to 27, 2026. It is the country’s long-running showcase for selling the Silk Road itself: Samarkand’s tiled domes, Bukhara’s caravanserais, Khiva’s walled inner town.

Thirty-one editions means this is an established fixture, not an experiment. Tour operators, hoteliers, regional tourism boards and airlines use it to meet partners, and foreign exhibitors come to sell Uzbek travellers on trips abroad.

The venue and how people reach it

Past editions have been held at Uzexpocentre, the national exhibition complex in northern Tashkent near the TV Tower. The organiser lists the venue for each year on its official site, and that page is the reference for 2026.

The Tashkent Metro is the cheapest way across the city. Its stations are worth seeing in their own right, with chandeliers, marble and Soviet-era mosaics. Many delegates skip the metro, though, and use Yandex Go, the ride-hailing app most locals use. Its cars queue near exhibition entrances at the end of each day.

What fills the halls

Expect stands arranged by region and country. Uzbek regional pavilions usually lean hard on visuals:

• suzani embroidery hung as backdrops
• Rishtan ceramics in blue and green glaze
• photographs of the Registan and the Kalta Minor minaret
• brochures for pilgrimage routes, mountain resorts around Chimgan and desert yurt camps

Trade fairs of this type are mostly about meetings. The real business happens at stand tables over tea, in short scheduled conversations, rather than in the aisles. Panel sessions and conference programmes, when they run, appear on the organiser’s schedule. This guide does not list them.

Doing business at a Tashkent fair

Uzbek business etiquette is warm and quite formal, and a few habits help:

• Greeting: “Assalomu alaykum” is the standard greeting. Men often shake hands with a light touch of the right hand to the heart. With women, many visitors wait for her to offer a hand first.
• Tea: if a stand offers choy (tea), accept it. Refusing outright reads as cold, and the pouring is part of the conversation.
• Cards: exhibitors trade business cards constantly. Bilingual cards in English and Russian or Uzbek get read on the spot.
• Language: Russian still works as the business lingua franca in Tashkent, and English is common at international stands but patchy elsewhere.
• Payment: bank cards work at hotels and larger restaurants. Uzbek som in cash still covers taxis without the app, bazaars and small cafés.

Visitors who plan meetings usually set them up with exhibitors by email in the weeks before. Walk-up conversations happen too, but the first two days tend to fill quickly.

Tashkent in late November

Late November is cool and often grey. Days are usually mild enough for a jacket, and evenings turn cold. The summer heat is long gone, which suits walking between sights, but daylight ends early in the afternoon.

Hotels near Amir Temur Square and along the central avenues put you close to the metro and to evening dining. Delegates on longer trips often add the high-speed Afrosiyob train to Samarkand after the fair. It is the quickest overland link between the two cities.

Evenings after the exhibition

The fair ends each afternoon, and the city is close by.

• Khast Imam complex: the old-city religious ensemble, home to a library known for holding an early Quran manuscript.
• Chorsu Bazaar: a huge turquoise dome over spice, bread and dried-fruit traders, busiest in the morning but worth an end-of-day wander.
• Minor Mosque: white marble on the bank of the Ankhor canal, lit after dark.
• Amir Temur Square: the city’s central roundabout park, ringed by the Hotel Uzbekistan’s latticed façade.

For dinner, plov is the dish to order. Large plov centres cook it in vast cauldrons and are traditionally a midday affair. In the evenings, shashlik grills and samsa ovens take over.