A tourist visits a memorial stupa made with the skulls of over 8,000 victims of the Khmer Rouge regime at Choeung Ek, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Aug. 4, 2014. (Photo : Reuters)
Cambodia’s Tourism Ministry has unveiled a white paper for capitalizing on the fast growth in China’s inbound tourism, aiming to draw and cater for approximately 2 million Chinese tourists per year by 2020.
China Ready for Cambodia Tourism guide has a five-year strategy to increase the share of Chinese tourists to the kingdom to approximately one-third of the total 7.5 million annual tourists projected by 2020, according to Xinhua.
Speaking during the white paper release on Monday, Jan. 25, Tourism Minister Thong Khon said that amid the rapid increase in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Cambodia--ranked second among all travelers last year--the ministry's concern would be to improve the quality of Cambodia's tourism products through targeted marketing, the Global Times reported.
Phnom Penh Post quoted Khon as saying, "Marketing Cambodia as a tourist destination in the Chinese market is still limited and tourism facilities are not meeting the expectations of Chinese tourists."
Southeast Asia got about 13 million Chinese tourists in 2014, with just 560,000 visiting Cambodia. The rest of neighboring countries including Thailand and Vietnam received 7.9 million and 1.6 million, respectively.
The white paper outlines steps to be taken by tourism administrators to enable visits by Chinese tourists, such as offering Chinese signage and documents for visa processing, making sure that food and accommodation facilities are according to Chinese taste, and encouraging local use of the Chinese yuan currency.
Chea Seng, manager of Hong Yi Travel Service, a travel firm that takes care of Chinese tourists, said that Chinese were huge spenders, and enjoyed shopping and nightlife activities while traveling.
Chea was quoted by the newspaper as saying, "They will spend money if we can create services for them. And if they are happy, they will come back again."
