Khmer Times
Following China’s decision to ease foreign travel restrictions for it’s nationals, PM Hun Sen has said that ‘Cambodia is an attractive tourist destination for the Chinese people’.
The PM made his remarks at the ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of a bridge across the Mekong River in Kratie province and a connecting road.
The PM stated that before the outbreak of COVID-19, Cambodia received more than 2 million Chinese tourists, but when the COVID-19 outbreak occurred, the number of Chinese tourists declined.
He added that “China has now reopened the country with tens of millions to hundreds of millions of tourists, so Cambodia is an attractive tourist destination for the Chinese people,”
He also stated that in the past few days, there has been some propaganda about the spread of COVID in China, which is a fear, not a reality.
The PM stated “Cambodia does not require Chinese people to do anything, just to come as normal tourists.”
Cambodia’s open policy is in contrast to the policies of countries like the US, South Korea, India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan who have imposed COVID tests for travellers from China.
In response, Chinese state tabloid Global Times said in an article late on Thursday that “The real intention is to sabotage China’s three years of COVID-19 control efforts and attack the country’s system,” and called the restrictions “unfounded” and “discriminatory.”
On the prospects of Chinese arrivals, Thong Rathasak Director General, the Ministry of Tourism, told Khmer Times on Thursday, during the “pre-Covid (period), China was the world’s tourism source market,” and the revival of travel there will “certainly help us, ASEAN and the rest of the world.”
Cambodia estimates “to reach the 2.2 million Chinese tourist arrivals of 2019 between 2025 and 2027,” he said and added, “Again, it depends on their Covid-19 policies.”
In 2019, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), more than 6.6 million international tourists arrived in Cambodia, generating $4.92 billion in revenue. The number of Chinese travellers was over 2.4 million, or 36 percent of the total.
In January-November 2022, over 90,000 Chinese tourists arrived in Cambodia at a growth rate of 113.8 percent, according to the Tourism Ministry. Until October, only 75,915 Chinese had travelled to Cambodia, accounting for 4.8 percent of the total inbound arrivals.
Prime Minister Hun Sen in July asked tourism officials to gear up for an influx of tourists from China as once Beijing eased Covid-19 curbs the number of Chinese visitors to the Kingdom would increase dramatically.
In 2018, Cambodia was the eighth largest recipient of Chinese travellers, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
1 comment:
Why not? Cambodia can be like Thailand. Just let in 40 million chinese in and foreigners too. Then claim Khmers were always chinese and westerners people. Laos too. Laos should also let 40 million chinese and westerners in.
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