Cambodia earned $18.45 million in revenue from the sale of tickets at Angkor Archaeological Park in the first nine months of 2020, a 75 percent decrease compared with the same period last year, according to figures from Angkor Enterprise.
The number of tickets sold at the park saw a 76.17 percent decrease from January to September, with just over 396,241 foreign tourists buying passes, Angkor Enterprises said.
In September alone, the sale of tickets at Angkor Wat was only $124,296 with 2,958 foreign tourists, a drop of about 97.45 percent for the same period last year.
Some of the revenue of ticket sales to Angkor Wat, $792,482, was sent to Kantha Bopha Foundation that supports the country’s five Kantha Bopha children’s hospitals in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.
Besides the sale of tickets to Angkor Archaeological Park, Angkor Enterprise also gained $89,140 of ticket sales from foreign tourists who visit Koh Ker Temple. Koh Ker is a 10th-century temple complex in the north Cambodian jungle. A former capital of the Khmer Empire, the site is now remote and heavily forested. The main structure, Koh Ker Temple, is a stepped seven-tiered pyramid.
To restore the numbers of tourists to visit Siem Reap province, the draft of the Siem Reap tourism development master plan for 2020-2035 will be finalised this month and submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval.
The Siem Reap Tourism Development Master Plan 2020-2035 is expected to be the key mechanism to reply to the current and future economic situation, notably the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly to achieve the government’s view that considers the tourism sector as “green gold”.
Its vision is to regain Siem Reap’s pride as the main tourism destination of Cambodia’s tourism sector and a main tourism destination in the entire Southeast Asian region.
The National Tourism Development Committee will hold another meeting this month to finalise the draft master plan before submitting it to Prime Minister Hun Sen for approval.
This article was first published in Khmer Times. All contents and images are copyright to their respective owners and sources.
