MOT: tourist arrivals in Cambodia rise 22% in the first 9 months

Cambodia attracted 4.8 million tourists in the first three quarters of this year, a 22 percent increase over the same period last year, the Ministry of Tourism’s report showed yesterday.

Thailand was the top source market for foreign tourist arrivals in Cambodia from January to September with 1.52 million visitors, a year-on-year decrease of 14 percent, the report said.

Some 973,407 Vietnamese and 607,542 Chinese tourists travelled to Cambodia during the first three-quarter period of this year, up 33 percent and 49.8 percent respectively, it added.

As many as 1.7 million foreign visitors, or about 35.5 percent of the total foreign tourist arrivals, travelled to Cambodia by air, a year-on-year increase of 27 percent.

The remaining tourists arrived via land border gates and waterways, the report pointed out.

The report also said that the figures indicated that Cambodia’s tourism sector is on the path of recovery even though it has not yet reached the level before the Covid-19 crisis.

The positive trend aligns with Cambodia’s ambition to surpass pre-pandemic tourist numbers. The ministry previously projected a target of seven million foreign tourist arrivals by 2025, exceeding the 6.6 million recorded in 2019.

At the same time, the ministry’s report showed that Cambodia’s outbound tourism also went up by 3.2 percent to 1.36 million during the January-September period of this year.

In a report issued recently, the National Bank of Cambodia said that the tourism sector is one of the main drivers of the country’s economic growth in 2024.

Last year, the Kingdom received 5.45 million foreign visitors, earning a gross revenue of $3.08 billion, according to the Ministry of Tourism.