A decline has been recorded in the Thai tourist visitation to Cambodia, the double digit growth in tourism that the country enjoyed a few years ago as revealed by the latest government data is going down.
The growth seems to have halted as the latest data reveal that tourism arrival was 2.2million in the same period between January to June in the last year. A marginal 5% growth has been recorded by the latest half-yearly report from the Tourism Ministry. The growth recorded from 2010 to 2013 was around 13 per cent to 26 percent.
Kong Sophearak, director of the ministry’s statistics department attributed this fall to the decline in overland arrivals from Thailand over the past six months.
There has been a 23 per cent decline of visitors from Thailand through the Poipet border gate in the first half of the year. However, there has been a growth in air travel between both countries with total number of Thai arrivals recorded to be 106,000 which is more than 4 per cent more than last year at this time.
Political unrest in Thailand has caused a considerable impact on the tourism industry of Thailand. Cambodia was promoted by Thailand in the past as visitors to Thailand also went to Cambodia.
Tour operators of Cambodia are confident that the numbers will rise in the second half of 2014. Thailand too will recover from its political deluge and bring its tourism industry back to its old status. October is the best time to visit Cambodia and Thailand. Direct flights are available from Japan. Japanese tourists were among the larger visitors in the first six months of this year. A 12 percent increase has been recorded compared to the same time last year.
