Prime Minister Hun Sen is encouraging the development of rural tourism to promote tourism products, rural skills and create jobs, as the sector is currently being severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Prime Minister’s call came on World Tourism Day yesterday under the theme of tourism and rural development.
He said the government has noted that COVID-19 has changed the concept of tourism, with people visiting more rural-based communities and ecological areas.
The Prime Minister said that many countries around the world are facing difficulties as people leave the countryside to move to cities, causing agriculture and other local supporting economies to suffer from labor and skills shortages. Developing rural tourism will contribute to reducing migration and creating more jobs.
He said the government would like to thank all parties for supporting the Ministry of Tourism in promoting regional tourism during the pandemic. More than 1.5 million domestic and international tourists who live here visited the country during the New Year, spending $100 million.
For tourism to become an effective driver of economic diversification and support other sectors in rural areas, the government calls on stakeholders to increase skills development and education as key to developing rural tourism.
Mr. Hun Sen said that this requires the state, private sector and other stakeholders to contribute to the development and training of entrepreneurship skills, tourism skills for local people who are tourism service providers focused on creating and promoting new products in the context of digital tourism.
Authorities must define tourism as a strategic pillar for rural development with specific development plans in line with the potential of each area, with the participation of local communities in the form of public-private partnerships, people-to-people and partnerships.
Mr. Thuan Sinan, President of the Asia-Pacific Association of Travel Agents, said that this is the idea of Asian tourism and this issue has been raised by the private sector to diversify tourism products.
He continued: “As a private sector organization, we have consulted with the government about diversifying tourism products in what we call ecotourism, but it is not enough and what the Prime Minister mentioned could refer to agri-tourism. “It is not only beneficial in attracting tourists, but it also provides potential for the sale of agricultural products, increasing local income and creating more jobs in rural areas.”
However, he said the lack of infrastructure remains a concern for the developing sector in Cambodia.
He added that “for the local population, it is fine, but to attract more foreigners, the infrastructure needs to be improved.”
The World Bank said in its report on the development of ecotourism in Cambodia that the government’s strategy for developing the country’s ecotourism sector does not provide comprehensive guidance on it.
The report said that planning for infrastructure development related to ecotourism must be done with caution and attention to the environment.
The report continued that inadequate transport infrastructure and poor services hinder sustainable tourism development, as many secondary destinations are unable to attract private investment in quality service infrastructure.
According to the Ministry of Tourism, the Kingdom of Cambodia’s tourism sector will lose US$5 billion in revenue in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Cambodia’s tourism sector earns about US$6 billion a year from domestic and international travel. In 2019, ecotourism accounted for 16 percent of total tourist arrivals. The World Bank said this number doubled between 2014 and 2019.
Translated by Siew Kui Yi
