[From that respected publication ''Pattaya Mail''..]

While Thai authorities seek to diversify foreign tourism beyond sexpots and seriously ponder 10 year visas for super-rich investors and retirees, neighboring Cambodia is preparing for a mass international influx starting soon. Cambodian premier and strongman HE has already liberalized immigration rules by abolishing compulsory medical insurance, pre-flight medical checks and even on-arrival health tests for fully-vaccinated foreign visitors. But that’s only the start.


Thai Smile began flights to Cambodia last month, but land borders remain closed to tourists.

More than 100 kilometers of new roads have been constructed in and around Siem Reap which is the gateway to the Unesco-listed Angkor Archaeological Park. An investment of US$150 million has seen the thoroughfares equipped with modern street lighting, traffic lights and security cameras. Much of the old town will be totally unfamiliar to the 2022 visitor although the internationally-famous Pub Street remains. HE has described Siem Reap province as the rising star of the kingdom, especially the ancient temples which attracted 2.2 million foreigners in 2019 and produced US$100 million from ticket sales alone.


Siem Reap’s Pub Street has mostly survived the infrastructure revolution in the town and its surroundings.

Meanwhile, a brand new 700-hectares international airport is under construction, funded by the Chinese investment company Yunnan Holdings, which is scheduled to open late next year about 50 kilometers from Siem Reap. Press releases say it is designed to protect the Angkor Wat World Heritage Site – the current airport produces too much environmental damage and attacks temple foundations – and to double tourist numbers becoming the “new Thailand”.

A new US$1.5 billion airport to serve the capital Phnom Penh is also under construction and is scheduled to be completed by 2025. It will be the ninth largest airport by area in the entire world. Plans are also afoot to improve Sihanoukville international airport which serves a beach resort and is the casino hub for the entire country. Cambodia’s tourism ministry predicts that international passengers to the country as a whole will be 12 million by the mid-decade, double the 2019 total.


Chinese tour groups abroad are still banned by Beijing because of the coronavirus threat.

Phnom Penh travel agent Doun Visith says that 30,000 foreign visitors visited Cambodia during the recent April water-festival celebrations, mostly flying in from Thailand and Singapore. “This is slower than you would expect, but there is currently no Chinese tour market and the land borders with Thailand remain closed to tourist traffic.” He cautiously added, “But Cambodia will never allow the tourist industry to be based on the former Thai model of go-go clubs, seedy bars with rooms by the hour and rude transvestite cabarets.” If he’s right, it looks like the sex tourist has become an endangered species.

https://www.pattayamail.com/news/cambod ... aaaReeqkxU

One "new Thailand" is bad enough already.

open late next year about 50 kilometers from Siem Reap.

Add $30 and at least an hour for a taxi from the airport to central Siem Reap.

Someone needs to inform them the majority of tourists' going to Thailand are not headed there for temples and pub street doesn't compare to to even Soi LK well in so far as what attracts the Pattaya tourist set now if Snooky was totally destroyed and turned into little shanghai and they instead kept it a sleepy beach village and concentrated on good beach side resorts maybe a chance but IMHO they have shat all over the only really good beach destination they have with respect to Kep (tiny)

It looks like English but.....

not in a million year
2018 39 million tourists to thailand
Cambodia got about 15% of that

Say what you will, Cambodia will never be a single destination for westerners. It will always be an addon

phuketrichard wrote: ↑Sun Apr 24, 2022 4:53 pm not in a million year
2018 39 million tourists to thailand
Cambodia got about 15% of that

Say what you will, Cambodia will never be a single destination for westerners. It will always be an addon

Perhaps not anytime soon, but not in a million years? Your distain for Cambodia keeps shining through. Thailand might have done well with its exploitation of foreigners for the last 50 years but the Thai arrogance and xenophobia will eventually drive tourism towards its much friendlier neighbors. Thais make Viets seem nice. At least when Viets smile it means something, the Thai grimace is becoming more and more obvious to everyone. It's a military junta with a very sketchy figurehead. Keep trying to throw shade on Myanmar and Cambodia, we can see through all that nonsense now though. The only reason Thailand thrived was because it supported foreign powers in the bombing and destruction of the former Indochina. Land of smiles indeed.