Tourism arrivals rebounded in July, says govt

A 10 percent jump in tourism arrivals in July eroded losses over the first six months of the year, according to unofficial numbers released by Tourism Minister Thong Khon.More than 163,000 people visited the country last month, he said, bringing arrivals for the first seven months of the year to 1,284,085, a 0.3 percent rise on the 1,246,685 million visitors through to the end of July 2008.

Figures for the first six months of the year show a 1.1 percent fall in visitor arrivals, compared with a year earlier, to 1,086,518. The figures include tourists and business travellers.An increase in visitors from neighbouring Laos and Vietnam offset a huge fall in arrivals from South Korea, which was the single largest source country for foreign visitors in the early part of 2008 until the bottom fell out of the country's economy.

"The opening of tourism hubs, such as new border crossings and the new national air carrier, a lowering on tourism service prices and efforts to facilitate transport routes into Cambodia were key ways to draw tourists from the region, as well as those from European, during the [financial] crisis," Thong Khon said. Click to read more...