via VOD English, 06 March 2020: In-depth analysis of the tourist situation in Siem Reap points to a number of trends I have been recording through this site- the decreasing number of tourists, an over-reliance on tourism from China and a failure to diversify.
While Lekh mostly guides Western tourists, about 40 percent of the 2.2 million visitors to the temple park last year were from China, the nation with the most visitors to the complex in at least the last four years, according to figures from state-run Angkor Enterprise.
But the number of Chinese visitors to Cambodia has dropped following the global outbreak of the respiratory disease Covid-19, which was first detected in China in late December.
Cambodia’s total tourism revenue may take a multimillion-dollar hit, with the Asian Development Bank estimating a loss of $345.7 million in the best-case scenario, and $856.5 million in the worst case due to Covid-19 impacts.
Even before the virus started forcing people to cancel their travel plans this year, Chinese tourist numbers were declining. Visitors from China to Angkor park dropped by about 22 percent from 2018 to 2019, while overall visitors were down nearly 15 percent.
Source: Amid Virus Fears, a Tourist Decline in Already Slumping Siem Reap
