Foreign Visitors to Angkor Wat Suddenly Drop, What About Cambodia's Economy This Year...

Tourism Industry Recovery Expected to Take 3-5 Years
World Bank "Growth Rate Rebounds to 4% This Year"

Angkor Wat/Photo by Getty Images Bank

[Asia Economy Phnom Penh Correspondent An Gil-hyun] Due to the impact of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), the number of foreign visitors to Cambodia's representative tourist site, the Angkor Archaeological Park, last year decreased by 82% compared to the previous year, recording 400,889 visitors. Angkor Enterprise, the state-owned company responsible for ticket sales at the Angkor Archaeological Park, also announced that ticket sales revenue dropped by 81% to $18.65 million.

Tickets for the Angkor Archaeological Park are priced at $37 for one day, $62 for three days, and $72 for one week. Cambodian nationals enter free of charge. Last year's figures still reflect the first quarter performance before the COVID-19 pandemic fully took hold. The average number of foreign visitors from the second to fourth quarters was only 1,913, leading to the worst-case prediction that if the situation continues, the number of foreign visitors to the Angkor Archaeological Park this year will remain in the 20,000s.

◇Korean Community Dependent on Tourism Also Devastated= Given this situation, the Korean community in Siem Reap, whose main source of income is Korean tourists visiting the Angkor Archaeological Park, has been virtually devastated. The Kantabopha Children's Hospital, Cambodia's leading free children's hospital which receives a $2 donation per ticket sold, is also facing financial difficulties. Last year, Angkor Enterprise donated about $800,000 to Kantabopha Children's Hospital, an 82% decrease compared to the $4.41 million donated in 2019.

According to Park Woo-seok, president of the Siem Reap Korean Association, in 2019 there were about 30 Korean travel agencies and 500 Korean guides in Siem Reap City, but now all the travel agencies have closed and almost all the guides have left.

The problem is that the Siem Reap economy is unlikely to recover this year either.

As of the 10th, the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Cambodia stands at 391, indicating that the domestic COVID-19 situation is being managed stably. During the New Year holiday from December 31 to January 3, 1.26 million locals visited famous sites nationwide.

However, since local tourists' spending is not as large as that of foreigners, the tourism industry is struggling to recover. Cambodia's tourism sector forecasts that it will take 3 to 5 years to return to pre-COVID-19 levels.

Meanwhile, last month the World Bank predicted that Cambodia's economic growth rate last year would be minus 2%, the first negative growth since the founding of the Kingdom of Cambodia in 1993, but expects a rebound to 4% this year.

◇World Bank Forecasts 4% Rebound This Year= Last year, unlike the severely impacted garment exports, exports of non-garment products such as bicycles, electronic components, automobile parts, and accessories, as well as agricultural products like rice, increased, resulting in relatively strong overall exports. Bicycle exports in the first three quarters of last year rose 28.9% compared to 2019, reaching $379 million, and rice exports last year amounted to 690,000 tons worth $539 million, an 11.4% increase.

The export industry expects that the Cambodia-China Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), both signed in October and November last year respectively, will be favorable factors for exports. Both agreements are expected to come into effect soon.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.