Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Tourist arrivals in Cambodia increase in first 6 months

August 01, 2006

The number of foreign tourist visiting Cambodia has increased in the first six months of 2006.

From January to June, 813,392 tourists visited Cambodia, 19 percent more than the same period of 2005, according to statistics of the Ministry of Tourism received on Tuesday.

Most tourists toured the capital Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, home to Cambodia's world famous Angkor temples, by air.

South Korea tourists are still on the top of the list, followed by Japan and United States, while the numbers of tourists from the UK and France decreased.

Minister of Tourism Lay Prohas said the ministry is confident that it can reach its target of 1.6 million visitors for 2006, which he said should generate 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in revenue.

Tourism is one of the main sources of foreign exchange revenue for the country. In 1999, Cambodia welcomed 367,743 tourists, with 1,421,000 tourists in 2005, tourist arrivals have increased by 286. 41 percent and earned about 10 million U.S. dollars.

The Ministry of Tourism estimated that the average tourist spent approximately 770 dollars while visiting the country.

The Tourism Ministry predicted that the tourism sector will continue to grow by 25 to 30 percent until 2010.

Source: Xinhua

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Folk! This is even better than the recent oil discovery in Cambodia! Now tell me if tourism in Cambodia can generate 1.2 billion U.S. dollar a year and why Cambodia as a country still remain poor?

With the stampede of the million and million of tourist on Angkor temples and there will be some damage to Angkor wat and other monuments and who is going to repair it?

Tourism in Cambodia are being mismanaged badly by AH HUN SEN corrupted officials and most poor average Cambodian people fail to see the benefit of it! The pressure is still on Cambodian people to make way for more hotels, more casinos, more resorts...If Cambodian people kept making way for the tourists and Cambodia will soon become another Hawaii Island and pretty soon majority of the indigenous Cambodian people can't even afford to live in Cambodia! So where do Cambodian people go to live?

Just look at Hawaii Island and majority of Hawaiian can't even afford to live in Hawaii anymore and majority of Hawaiian people live in mainland United States!

Let be realistic here Cambodian people don't have much choice! AH HUN SEN had been trying for years to get rid of poor Cambodian people through hunger,joblessness, no land to farm, no housing, no healthcare system, no justice through court system, no economic opprotunity,...I don't need to say more! Now more than half of the Cambodian population are very poor people and this is a second genocide!

Poor Cambodian people are a dying race! If God condemn these poor Cambodian people to die, please don't allow these poor Cambodian die of hunger!