Between January-November more than 180,000 Vietnamese visited various tourists destinations in Cambodia.

Travel activities between Asian neighbours Cambodia and Vietnam are picking up after two years of the Covid-19 pandemic that virtually destroyed the tourism industry across the world.

Between January and November this year, while more than 180,000 Vietnamese people visited Cambodia, an almost similar number (just 10,000 fewer people) around 170,000 from the Kingdom travelled to Vietnam in 10 months of this year.

Cambodia ranked third as the source of foreign tourists after South Korea (760,000) and the USA (270,000) for Vietnam, which welcomed over 2.95 million international visitors in the 11 months of 2022, according to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam. For Cambodia, Vietnam ranked second after Thailand as the source of inbound tourists during the January-October period, according to the Tourism Statistics Report for October 2022 of the Ministry of Tourism of Cambodia. During this period, Vietnam accounted for 21.7 percent of the total foreign tourist arrivals in Cambodia, against 8,898 visitors during January-October 2021, marking a change of 3,743 percent.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) contributed 72 percent of visitors to the total of tourist arrivals in Cambodia during 10 months of 2022, shows the report.

While Cambodia aims to attract more than two million inbound visitors during the year, Vietnam has set the goal for 2022 at 5 million plus foreign tourists. According to the government functionaries, the number of foreign tourist arrivals could reach the pre-Covid-19 pandemic level (around 7 million) in 2026 or 2027.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has also called for better tourism relations between the two neighbours by strengthening and speeding up outreach and improving connectivity. He said this while addressing the Cambodia-Vietnam Investment and Trade Promotion Forum 2022 on November 8.

Cambodia and Vietnam continue to strive to maintain strong bilateral relations through senior leaders’ visit exchanges and continued contact between the people of the two countries as
they are celebrating the 55th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties.

Since the beginning of the year, the two countries have exchanged many high-level delegations, Cambodian Ambassador to Vietnam Chay Navuth said in an interview with the Vietnam News Agency.

In the sphere of economy and trade, the two neighbours that share a 1,158 km border have reported $10 billion in bilateral trade so far this year.

The two countries have registered the highest social and economic recovery in Asia after easing the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions for travel and businesses. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) lowered its growth forecast for Asia but raised the same for Southeast Asia for this year from 5.1 percent to 5.5 percent amid robust consumption and tourism recovery in Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

By contributing 37.5 percent of the total foreign arrivals in Cambodia in 10 months, Thailand ranked first, followed by Vietnam, China, the USA, Laos, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, France, and the United Kingdom, Tourism Ministry spokesman Top Sopheak recently told Khmer Times.

In the 10 months of 2022, Cambodia received over 1.57 million foreign visitors compared to the same 10 months of the previous year. Of this, the number of tourists from ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific was 1,136,878 and 1,357,550, respectively, compared with 87,103 and 135,832 during the same period of the last year.