The Ministry of Tourism’s new strategy of ‘Uniting for a Collective Vision’ to reposition Cambodia as a leading global destination has started yielding positive results. Going by the latest Tourism Statistics Report of the Ministry, international tourists who arrived in Cambodia touched 2.11 million mark in the first four months this year, reaching 38 percent of the total number of tourists in 2023.
Should the number maintain its momentum this way, the arrival of international tourists will reach over 6.3 million, an increase of 11.5 percent compared to last year Tourism, one of the four pillars for developing the economy in the Kingdom, was badly hit by the pandemic and still grappling to catch up with the pre-Covid pandemic levels.
To just give a feel of what the tourism sector in Cambodia was like before Covid-19 broke out in 2019, the stats speak for itself: It directly employed over 630,000 people with a revenue of nearly $5 billion, and contributed 18.2 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), the highest among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus three — China, Japan and the Republic of Korea. After the pandemic in November 2021, the sector was only able to generate about $1.
415 billion from 2.27 million international tourists and approximately $650 million from 13.93 million domestic visitors, contributing only 3.
6 percent of domestic growth in 2022. Even with its well-known Angkor Archaeological Park located about six kilometres northwe.