Thanks to very generous support from British Council in Tashkent and an agreement with British Airways, Discovery Central Asia was able to participate at WTM World Travel Market in London. Such interest in Central Asia and our activities! The daily selection of press events, presentations and seminars had us running criss-cross from one hall to the next, getting much needed inspiration and plenty of smart new ideas, linking up with travel professionals from all over the world. We held talks with David de Villiers from the World Travel Organisation, who we had met on his visit to Usbekistan with his wonderful wife, about how to further link up the countries along The Great Silk Road, whose tourism representatives we all got to know (Georgia has a great future measured by the dynamic team we met). BBC stopped by our stand, they are thinking of including Central Asia in a travel feature, a five minute chance encounter with Conde Nast over a coffee had our Editor-In-Chief dreaming…. individual travelers recounted in glowing words their recent trip to Kyrgyzstan or Samarkand, Bukhara….

And how we enjoyed being in London, and how impressed we were by London's attitude to customer service, public service staff in the tube and in the streets and airports. How we enjoyed the food, the parks, the entertainment. And most of all we were blown away by the number of foreign visitors on a November afternoon along Oxford Street, at Harrods…. millions! That also had us dreaming though we know and wish that Central Asia will always remain an exclusive destination where you as a visitor will feel lost in time and one of a kind.