Regional workshop on land transport for tourists in Cambodia

Cambodia will host regional workshop on land transport for tourists

By Chhorng Long Heng
Cambodia will host the regional seminar on the land transportation for tourists in Greater Mekong Sub-region to foster the tourism industry and facilitate the overland travel for tourists in a move to turn this great region into the destinations of foreign tourists and facilitate the domestic tourists while they cross the borders,” the statement from ministry of tourism of Cambodia said in its statement in June 10.

“The regional workshop will conduct in Phnom Penh and the participants from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos will meet to discus each other to provide the benefits for all local people in their country respectively from tourist industry and land transport and safe travel for tourists,” it said, adding that private and state stakeholders from the tourism sectors from these countries also will meet to exchange their views and business partners.

Bun Tee, president of the association of tourist guides said that the difficulties of land transport could affect the minds of tourists. They need easy process of administration from the authorities and safe in travel that are the opportunity of attracting the tourists to visit,” he added.

Dr. Thong Khon, tourism minister said that Cambodia riches in a wide variety of cultural and natural resources, therefore Cambodian tourism pillar is under “cultural and natural tourism”. Tourism has been regarded as a green economic which is one of the key areas to support a sustainable economic growth.
In a slide presentation with French businesspeople at the council for development of Cambodia (CDC) on June 9, Tourism minister said that Cambodia set up the national strategies plan for tourism development in country with focusing on the promotion of tourism events in the country and ecotourism, and tourist transport in open sky policy, and encourage the connectivity of long distance of travel like from EU, ASEAN, else where and air travel, and facilitate visa arrival, visa exemption, and single visa, and at the same time, we facilitated on accession of cruise ship of tourists. He added that tourism plays a significant role in terms of job creation, accelerates economic growth, earns foreign revenues, preserves cultural heritage and environment, encourages a responsible tourism and is a potential driving force in poverty alleviation.

He highlighted that the impact of global economic downturn in 2009 has caused number of tourist traveling in the region drop down, however international visitors flow to Cambodia remain at its positive stage which increased by 2 per cent (2.16 million). Significantly, the number of domestic tourist growth by 4 % (7.02 million) and this growth has great contribution to stimulate Cambodia Marco-economic during the downturn.

“The positive growth of international and domestic tourists due to the introduction of additional policies and strategies particularly promotion campaign “Cambodia-kingdom of Wonder” and “Clean city, Clean resort, Good Service” has great potential and play a pivotal role to provide a standard quality tourism services for all visitors,” he noted.

“In 2010, we predicted that we will get about 2.4 million foreign tourists to see here, and we will collect 1.8 billion US dollars and in 2015, we predict to get 3.5 million foreign visitors with revenue of 2.8 billion US dollars,” he maintained. In 2009, Cambodia gained about 1,561 million US dollars from tourism industry and also contributed to GDP of the country.

Cambodia and Indonesia last week inked the agreement of simple visa exemption, a move to attract tourists and make easy for tourists and businesspeople to visit the ASEAN countries. Cambodia will do visa exemption with other countries in region, and the government will discuss with South Korea and Japan, that tourists from these two countries are standing in top row to visit Cambodia, too. According to data from tourism ministry of Cambodia, from Jan – April 2010, there were 884,657 foreign tourists visiting Cambodia . ASEAN tourists had 35.77%, Asia and Oceania had 25.52 %, Europe with 23.29 %, and American 8.9%, Africa with 5.6% and Middle East of 0, 44% and 0,18 % same day visitors. And it added that 33, 023 French tourists visited Cambodia in January- April this year.

The tourism report added that in 2009, the main markets for Cambodia were Vietnam with 14.63 %, South Korea with 9.15 %, the United States of America with 6.87 %, and China with 5.93%, UK with 4.49%, and France with 4.88%, and Thailand with 4.72 %, and Laos with 4.36%, and Australia with 3.91%.

The data noted that the majority of international visitors arrived here by air, accounting 1,111,729 or 51.43% of all visitors in 2009. 27. 02% of air arrivals were registered at the Siem Reap International Airport , while 24. 41% were registered at the Phnom Penh International Airport . One of the most noticeable statistical declines was on the number of tourists who traveled by air – Cambodia showed a minus of 10.03 % declines from the year before.

Air travelers still remained a diverse bunch when hailing from the Southeast Asian region, however, with 52.25 % arriving from Thailand , 39.06 % from Vietnam , 7.63% from Singapore , 8.93 % from Malaysia , 11.86 % from Korea and 2.92% from Laos and 4.83% from other countries within the region. In 2009, overland travelers to Cambodia accounted for 39.59% a sharp increase over the 23.99% registered in 2009,” it added
In 2009, it was a harsh year for tourism industry in the Southeast Asia . The global economic crisis created huge fluctuations in the prices of international commodities, such as oil, and volatility in the exchange rate. The worldwide economic downturn when coupled with other factors such as regional political crisis, natural disasters and the threat of pandemic disease (swine flu), created a perfect storm that washed away many of the gains made in the Asia-Pacific tourism sector in recent year. Tourism in the region saw a 2% drop in 2009. Cambodia ’s tourism industry suffered many of the impacts felt throughout the region, but showed remarkable resilience in key areas, such as overland travel and ecotourism that may prove critical o the future health of the country’s tourism sector.
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