ASEAN HEADLINE | CAMBODIA: Kingdom records 23 percent rise in foreign tourist arrivals in Jan-April
Cambodia received 2.11 million foreign tourists in the first four months this year, up 23 percent compared to the same period last year, a Ministry of Tourism report showed on Monday.
Thailand was the biggest tourism market for the Kingdom during the period with 588,312 visits from the neighbouring country, though it constituted a year-on-year decrease of 3.2 percent, the report said.
Some 414,366 Vietnamese and 260,455 Chinese also travelled to Cambodia during the four-month period, up 43.1 percent and 41.5 percent respectively, the report added.
Memento Maxima Digital MarketingOver 824,957 tourists, or about 39 percent of foreign tourist arrivals were via airports, a year-on-year increase of 30.1 percent and the rest were via border gates and waterways, read the report.
Top Sopheak, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Tourism said that upgraded airport facilities and air connectivity have undoubtedly played crucial roles in facilitating this growth.
“These figures are a clear indication that Cambodia’s tourism sector is on a recovery path, despite not reaching the pre-Covid-19 pandemic level,” he said.
“The Ministry of Tourism is putting its efforts in working with relevant parties and the private sector to promote tourism potential in order to attract more foreign tourists to visit Cambodia,” Sopheak told Khmer Times on Monday.
Tourism is one of the four pillars supporting Cambodia’s economy.
In April, the government launched the ‘Visit Siem Reap 2024’ Campaign to attract more visitors to Cambodia’s tourist hotspot, which is having a hard time recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ministry’s report showed that Cambodia’s outbound tourism also went up by 2.2 percent to 582,986 during the January-April period of this year.
The ministry also recorded 7.8 million domestic visitors to the tourism destinations inside the country.
Last year, the Kingdom received 5.45 million foreign visitors, earning a gross revenue of $3.08 billion, according to the Ministry of Tourism.
