Cambodia sees surge in Chinese visitors, welcomes 547,798 individuals in 2023

The Kingdom of Cambodia had 547,798 Chinese visitors in 2023—a remarkable 413% increase from the previous year.

Despite this large rise, the numbers were still below pre-pandemic levels, making up less than 25% of the over 2.4 million Chinese visitors who visited in 2019.

According to the Ministry of Tourism, there were 5.45 million tourists in Cambodia in 2023—a 140% increase over the 2.27 million visitors in 2022. China was the third-largest source of tourism market in the Kingdom, accounting for almost 10% of all visitors. With 1.82 million and 1.02 million visitors, respectively, Thailand and Vietnam topped the list.

Despite the notable uptick, Chinese tourism has not yet fully recovered to pre-COVID levels, when the majority of Cambodia’s tourist trips came from China. In 2019, 2.36 million visitors from China accounted for 35.7% of total visits.

Sok Soken, the minister of tourism, expressed optimism about an increase in Chinese tourists the next year. He brought up the recently announced People-to-People Exchange Year initiative for 2024, which attempts to enhance cross-cultural exchanges and grow the travel and tourism sector.

With this initiative, Soken intends to strengthen the already strong ties of goodwill between Cambodia and China by attracting more Chinese tourists and investment in the country.

Original story by: IAG