PHNOM PENH: Cambodia’s main tourist attraction, the Angkor Archaeological Park, is seeing a big drop in the number of tourists visiting it amid fears of the novel coronavirus.
In its latest report, the state run Angkor Enterprises, the company that manages ticket sales at the temple complex, said the number of tickets sold at the park saw nearly an 18 per cent decrease compared to January last year.
It said revenue from ticket sales were about US$10.5 million for January this year, nearly a 15 pe rcent decrease compared with the same time last year.
Quoting the report, The Khmer Times said that a total of 222,560 foreign tourists bought passes to the country’s most famous tourist attraction in the Siem Reap province.
Although it did not disclose the reason behind the decline of tourist arrivals, it is believed to have been affected by fear of the Coronavirus, which has now killed 362 people and infected more than 17,300 globally as of Monday.
The Coronavirus outbreak is rising rapidly and the infection rate has shown no signs of slowing down, a situation that has now been declared as a global emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO) last week.
Last week, Finance Ministry secretary of state Vongsey Visoth said that Cambodia’s economic growth was going to experience a slowdown because of the impact of the virus outbreak on the tourism sector.
“The outbreak of SARS that took place between 2002 and 2003 seriously affected global tourism,” Vongsey said.
“Now the Coronavirus is affecting China, where one third of our tourists come from, it will inevitably effect Cambodia.”
The outbreak of the virus came amid China’s busiest travel season, with more than seven million people estimated to have made plans to travel abroad during the Chinese lunar New Year holidays.
“We currently do not have any flights from Wuhan until the Chinese government announces otherwise,” said Sin Chansereyvutha, spokesman for the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation.
“There are no direct flights from Wuhan to Cambodia, but for other Chinese destinations, flights are still available,” Sin pointed out.
He added that flights to and from China have been reduced to about 40 to 50 per cent because concerned tourists were not booking as many flights as before.
According to the Ministry of Tourism, Cambodia welcomed 6.6 million foreign tourists last year, which is a 6.6 per cent increase compared to 2018.
Of that number, Chinese tourists made up the most, with a total of more than 2.3 million – up nearly 17 percent from the year before.
Chuk Chumnor, spokesman for the Ministry of Tourism, also said last week that there was global concern about the impact the virus could have on the tourism industry.
“Chinese nationals are a big portion of the world’s holidaymakers and with the government’s ban amid the outbreak, it is going to badly affect the global tourism sector,” he said.
However, Chuk pointed out that the ministry was working with the private sector and setting out necessary measures to maintain stability during the Coronavirus crisis.
“This will include encouraging domestic tourist movements with special offers,” he added.