Cambodia Tourism received double digit growth

Written by Ozgur Tore

Monday, 26 December 2011

International tourist arrivals to Cambodia posted a double digit growth of 13.5% in October, while over the 10-month period the improvement reached 15.4%. After opening an office in Thailand, tourism started to grow rapidly. Only in October due to flooding in Thailand, there was a decline of 18.4% in arrivals. In October, just 10,431 Thais visited Cambodia. In October, Cambodia received 233,190 visitors, up 13.5% over the same month in 2010. Neighboring Vietnam contributed almost a quarter (23.2% share) or 54,008 tourists, a 26.1% rise in trips. In terms of regions, 75.7% of international tourists in October came from Asia Pacific, up 15.4% from the same month last year to reach 176,630 trips. Most of the arrivals from this region originated in ASEAN and East Asia and largely from a handful of countries – Vietnam, Korea, China, Japan, Thailand, Laos and Australia. Arrivals from South Asia and western Asia and other countries in the Pacific represented just 1.8%. Europe was the second contributor. The number increased at the beginning of the high season with a market share of 16.4% instead of 12.2% in September. It showed a small 8.8% improvement (38,207). Tourists from the Americas also increased, accounting for a 7.3% share instead of 5.5% in September. It represented a marginal 3.6% improvement on 17,013 trips. Very few tourists originated from Africa and Middle East, just, 415 and 925 respectively. In the emerging market category, Eastern Europe posted a substantial growth of 43.2% with arrivals from Bulgaria and Romania surging 78.8% and 122.4% respectively. However, only Russia supplied notable volume — 4,805 out of 6,404 arrivals from the region. The country posted a 55.5% growth over October 2010. By destinations visited, 122,450 tourists or 52.5% visited Siem Reap, while 110,740 or 47.5% visited Phnom Penh and other cities.