No Rush To Buy Angkor Air Tickets

Ticket sales at Cambodia?s new national carrier, Cambodia Angkor Air, have made only modest gains in its first four days despite offering tickets at reduced promotional rates, officials said Thursday.

Operating four daily return flights between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, the airline, which took to the air Monday, has the capacity to sell a maximum of 264 one-way tickets a day between Phnom Penh and Siem Rap as well as a further 132 between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City.

However, Nam Lui, a ticket officer with the airline?s Phnom Penh International Airport office, said that as of noon Thursday, Cambodia Angkor Air had sold approximately 160 of a possible 792 possible seats for flights from the capital to Siem Reap.

In order to increase sales, Mr Lui said that the airline must do more to ?advertise and make more promotions for Cambodia, for everyone? and acknowledged that competition form the slightly pricier Bangkok Airways, which has operated the Phnom Penh-Siem Reap route for years, was a hurdle the company would have to overcome.

Ho Vandy, co-chair of the state-private sector tourism working group, said Thursday that Cambodia Angkor Air would have to develop further its marketing strategy and increase its online presence in order to see sales of tickets increase.

?They have to conduct a workshop or seminar to represent their services and products to the stakeholders, hotels and tour operators,? he said, adding that the airline?s launch had been secured before any major marketing efforts have been put into place.

?As far as we?re concerned we know that the competition is there,? said Ekkaphon Nanta O?sot, deputy manager of the corporate communications department for Bangkok Airways in Phnom Penh. ?But we are still operating the usual schedule on that route. We still have advance bookings coming through and we are still [selling at the] same pace as we do before.?

Sourced = The Cambodia Daily