Siem Reap, the gateway to the ruins of Angkor, aims to triple its number of international tourist arrivals over the next 15 years and use this tourism revenue to accelerate rural development, under a development plan drafted in the first year of the pandemic.
A US$150 million makeover of the city was completed in March, including widening and adding roads and highways, expanding broadband access, and creating bicycle lanes along the river that meanders through it.
“Siem Reap’s downtown and surroundings, as well as the Angkor Wat heritage park, now have a new face,” said Thourn Sinan, president of the Cambodian chapter of the Pacific Asia Travel Association. “This new face is a very effective way to attract more international tourists and convince them to stay longer.”
Thourn said he was optimistic that Cambodia could become a “quality tourism” destination, as Siem Reap seeks to meet its development target of 7.5 million international tourists and 10.9 million domestic visitors per year by 2035.
The development plan’s primary goal of ensuring rural communities share in the tourism wealth is already being realised at Villa Chandara, the only fine-dining venue in the 400 sq km heritage park that surrounds Angkor Wat.
Under a unique business model developed by local organisation DineAway, a portion of the US$140 per-person charge for a five-course meal at the open-air gourmet restaurant and bar goes to upgrading the infrastructure of a nearby village where most of its employees live, said general manager Saryroth Chan.
Domestic tourist numbers are also swelling. More than 400,000 people visited Siem Reap – about twice its population – for Khmer New Year celebrations in April, most of whom were domestic tourists, according to the city’s tourism department.
Earlier this month, Cambodia’s Tourism Ministry revised its forecast for this year’s international arrivals to 1 million from the previous estimate of 700,000 – the former number equalling the amount of foreign tourists the country welcomed in 2004.
Still, after more than two years, the return of tourists is being celebrated, even outside the city.
Tek Lam, a resident of Banteay Cheu village, said the jets descending into nearby Siem Reap International Airport were a relief rather than noise pollution. “It’s the sound of tourists returning,” she said.
Since 2013, Tek has served fresh coconuts to people who stop at the stall in front of her home, and teaching them how to weave palm leaves dyed a kaleidoscope of colours into keychain-sized fish and birds for US$2 each.
Before the pandemic she earned US$200 to US$300 a month – enough to hook her home up to the electricity grid, add an outdoor shower stall, and ensure she could cover the payments required for her 16 grandchildren to graduate from high school.
But like many families in the village of 450 or so households, she saw this source of income dry up completely during the pandemic.
“For the first year we were terrified of Covid, but in the second we feared hunger,” she said. “We had to forage fields and streams for things we would not normally eat.”
Tourists cycling around the outer edges of the Angkor Archaeological Park began returning to Tek’s village in April.
Now she is back earning money, while DineAway’s Saryroth Chan says she is hopeful Villa Chandra will break even by the end of the year, so that they can open a new restaurant in another village.
This article was first published in Asia One . All contents and images are copyright to their respective owners and sources.
