The Kingdom of Cambodia welcomed 547,798 Chinese visitors in 2023, representing a 413% year-on-year increase but still less than a quarter of the nearly 2.4 million who visited in 2019.
According to figures released by the Ministry of Tourism, the total number of visitors to Cambodia last year reached 5.45 million – up by around 140% from 2.27 million in 2022 – with China accounting for around 10% of these.
It also made China the Kingdom’s third largest source tourist market behind Thailand and Vietnam, who contributed 1.82 million and 1.02 million visitors respectively.
Despite the improvement, Chinese tourism still lags well behind pre-COVID levels when it was by far Cambodia’s largest source tourism market. The 2.36 million Chinese who visited in 2019 comprised 35.7% of all arrivals for that year.
However, Tourism Minister Sok Soken said he looked forward to Chinese visitation accelerating this year, aided by the recent joint launch of the 2024 People-to-People Exchange Year initiative last week, which The Khmer Times says is aimed at deepening cultural exchanges and boosting the tourism sector.
“I’m strongly confident that the 2024 Cambodia-China People-to-People Exchange Year will become a new driving force to attract more Chinese tourists and investors to Cambodia, contributing further to deepening the bonds of friendship between the peoples of the two countries,” the Minister said.
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