A good news comes from Cambodia as the kingdom recently received predicate as one of world’s top tourist destinations. Accordingly, tourism still proves to be among Cambodia’s captivating sectors despite the current COVID-19 outbreak.
Cambodia won the award from the Pacific Area Travel Writers Association’s (PATWA) International Travel Award for Best Destination. A spokesperson from the Ministry of Tourism, Chuk Chumno, said that the Kingdom won because of its rich cultural heritage, cuisine, architecture, and warm hospitality.
The award, which believably will contribute more to Cambodia’s significance presence in the world, is not the end of the objectives. The spokesperson, furthermore, expressed that the Kingdom must work hard to reattain the award in the following years.
“We must participate in (maintaining) our heritage so we can win again in the coming years,” he said.
Tourism has always become Cambodia’s strong points since decades ago. Cambodia earned US$4.91 billion from 6.61 million foreign visitors in 2019. The figure went up by 12.4% from the preceding year.
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Cambodia and Tourist Visitations during the Coronavirus Outbreak
Indifferent from other countries, tourism sector in Cambodia also suffers from the Wuhan-originated coronavirus outbreak. Aside from travel ban, coronavirus fear also puts the sector in despair.
According to the government’s report, the number of overseas tourists visiting the country dropped significantly. In February, government’s figure showed that the number of foreign tourist dropped by approximately 60%.
The coronavirus-related problem in Cambodia is actually not affecting people’s healthcare much. So far, the country just reported five cases of coronavirus infections.
The aforesaid impact negatively influences the kingdom’s economy. Besides tourism and hospitality, other industries such as manufacturers suffer greatly to the point that it might face a mass unemployment.
That said, the COVID-19 negative impact to the tourism industries is greatly worrying. Accordingly, this is because tourism alone contributes roughly 12% to Cambodia’s GDP.
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