Cambodia’s tourism to recover after 2 years of a slump: official

PHNOM PENH, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) — Cambodia’s tourism industry is projected to rebound in 2022 after a two-year significant fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a tourism official said on Tuesday.

The kingdom received 1.3 million international tourists in 2020, down 80 percent from 2019, and the number had further declined by another 85 percent to 196,495 in 2021, a Ministry of Tourism report showed.

“We expect that the number of foreign tourists to Cambodia will begin to recover from this year thanks to our country’s re-opening to fully-vaccinated travellers,” Kong Sopheareak, director of statistics and planning department of the Ministry of Tourism, told Xinhua.

“With our quarantine-free policy, we’re confident that tourists will consider Cambodia as a key destination for their vacations, and we hope to attract half a million international visitors this year,” he said.

Tourism is one of the four pillars supporting the kingdom’s economy. The country attracted up to 6.61 million international tourists in 2019, generating gross revenue of 4.92 billion U.S. dollars, according to the Ministry of Tourism.

The country is famous for its three world heritage sites, namely the Angkor Archaeological Park, the Preah Vihear Temple and the Sambor Prei Kuk Archaeological Site. Besides, it has a 450-km pristine coastline stretching across four southwestern provinces.

Cambodia has opened its door to fully vaccinated travelers since November last year after most of its population had been vaccinated against COVID-19.

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