New flight to Ho Chi Minh City

SIHANOUKVILLE  Cambodia Angkor Air will inaugurate flights between Sihanoukville in Cambodia and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam 17 June.

The new five weekly flights will operate on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday using a 70-seat ATR-72 aircraft.

Flights will depart from Sihanoukville at 1240 and arrive in Ho Chi Minh City at 1340. The return flight will depart Ho Chi Minh City at 1450 and arrive in Sihanoukville at 1550. All times are local. The flight time is one hour.

Khmer Times media reported that it was the second international route established by Cambodia Angkor Air this year. The other was a service from Phnom Penh to Seoul, South Korea, introduced 17 April.

The business plan calls for 10 international and two domestic routes by 2017.

More than 1.5 million tourists visited Sihanoukville province last year, up more than 14% over 2014. There were over 1 million domestic visitors to the province’s beach resorts.

Sihanoukville is a province in the southwest of Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand. It is the oldest tourist destination on the coast and home to a busy commercial port and an airport.

Despite it’s a modest tourism profile — mainly Phnom Penh residents seeking a holiday break by the sea  — there are mega projects in the pipeline that will add hotels, golf courses and luxury second homes for tourists and wealthy residents. They will have a negative impact on the coastal and island environment if not controlled properly.

The Ministry of Tourism hopes to encourage international tourists to visit coastal areas and ecotourism destinations to take the pressure off Siem Reap, which dominates as the top tourist destination even surpassing Phnom Penh the capital.