Talks on linking Vietnam and Cambodia’s tourism

PHNOM PENH, Vietnamese and Cambodian tourism officials met in Phnon Penh, earlier this week, to explore how to boost tourism between the two countries.

Vietnam’s General Department of Tourism, under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism met with officials from with Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism and the Embassy of Vietnam in Cambodia for the event hosted in Phnom Penh, Tuesday, Vietnam Breaking News reported.

Celebration for the 50th anniversary of the founding of Vietnam-Cambodia diplomatic relations was the core element for the gathering of tourism officials.

Discussions focused on boosting two-way tourism and connecting tourist routes between popular destinations in the two countries.

More than 100 travel agencies, hotel and communication agencies working in Cambodia attended the discussions and presentations.

Addressing the event, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism deputy director general, Ha Van Sieu, stressed the importance of cooperation to ensure tourism could prosper.

He emphasised the need to enhance Vietnam’s tourism image so more Cambodians would visit the country.

“Our priority should be to connect destinations in the two countries by creating routes that will attract not only Cambodians and Vietnamese to explore, but also international travellers.”

Last year, Vietnam was the top source of travel to Cambodia and the exchange of visits between the two countries reached 1.17 million, of which nearly 212,000 of them were Cambodian travellers.

Cambodia is among the top 15 supply markets for travel to Vietnam.

During the first seven months of the year, Vietnam welcomed more than 131,000 Cambodian visitors, up 24% over the same period in 2016.

However, Vietnam is fast emerging as an important outbound travel  market for ASEAN neighbouring countries.

Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are all enjoying strong increases in tourist arrivals from Vietnam. For example Thailand’s Association of Thai Travel Agencies reported, last week, that Vietnamese travellers were the second most important market after China.

Thai travel agents handled 213,174 Vietnamese tourists during the seven months of the year an increase of more than 20%.

Cambodian Minister of Tourism, Thong Khon, noted that in 2016, Cambodia welcomed over 5 million international visitors (up 5% over 2015), of which Vietnam was the top market with 960,000 travellers.

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