China fuels Cambodia boom

PHNOM PENH Chinese arrivals continue to drive Cambodia’s aviation growth, according to a Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation report.
According to CAPA, Cambodia’s aviation market grew by 13% in 2014. The country handled 5.73 million passengers up from 5.08 million in 2013, which was the fastest rate in Southeast Asia, driven by a surge in traffic from China.
“Cambodia has now experienced double digit passenger growth for five consecutive years, an impressive but little known achievement.”
For three years running Cambodia has been one of the fastest growing markets in Asia. Most markets saw a significant slowdown in 2014.
Angkor Wat, CambodiaFor example, Airports of Thailand recorded 3% passenger growth for 2014 compared to 16% in 2013. Malaysia Airports reported 5% passenger growth in 2014 compared to 18% in 2013. Singapore passenger traffic grew by only about 1% in 2014 while the Vietnamese and Indonesian markets grew by an estimated 11% and 5% respectively, it said.
Cambodia was able to attract more Chinese tourists in 2014 who were initially planning to travel to Thailand, Malaysia or Singapore. Demand for holidays to Thailand was impacted through the first nine months of 2014 by the civil unrest in Bangkok, while Malaysia demand was impacted following the Malaysia Airlines MH370 incident in March.
“Cambodia is close to China, cheap and culturally relatively similar, making the Chinese comfortable with eating and travelling around Cambodia. Another advantage for Cambodia is that most Chinese tourists holidaying in Cambodia visit spend all the time in the country rather joining multi-destination tours,” the report said.
Chinese airlines have so far been the main beneficiaries of the rapid growth in the Cambodia-China market. Of the 27 foreign airlines, that currently operate scheduled passenger services to Cambodia, seven are Chinese – Air China, China Eastern, China Southern, Shandong, Spring, Tianjin and Xiamen.
Cambodia Angkor Air and Sky Angkor Airlines have also been pursuing expansion in China through a combination of new scheduled and charter flights. But Chinese carriers currently account for approximately 75% of seat capacity between the two countries, according to CAPA and OAG, aviation information and analytical services, data.

sourced:ttrweekly.com