Though tourism across Southeast Asia is in the process of regaining its pre-Covid health, with a 26.3 percent recovery rate against pre-pandemic levels Cambodia is placed third among ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member states.

According to the Tourism Advisory Board of Vietnam, while Singapore tops the table with a 30.9 percent recovery rate, Malaysia is second at a 27.5 percent rate of recovery. After Cambodia is Indonesia in fourth place with a 22.9 percent recovery rate. The Philippines is fifth with a 22.1 percent and Thailand at the sixth spot with a 22 percent recovery rate.

The recovery rate as against pre-pandemic levels in Vietnam is only 18.1 percent, far behind the neighbours like Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia says the Tourism Advisory Board. It has also suggested several measures like easing Visa norms to accelerate the tourism sector’s recovery in the country.

Given the rising arrival of international tourists, Cambodia hopes to welcome two million plus arrivals by this year’s end and by 2026 or 2027 achieve the pre-Covid level of tourist arrivals.

“In 2022, Cambodia is expected to receive about 2.2 million foreign tourists,” said a senior Tourism Ministry official. Before Covid struck in 2019, Cambodia had received over 7 million global tourists. Continuing with the trend of increasing footfalls during January-October 2022, the number of international arrivals increased by 991.1 percent compared with 10 months of the previous year, according to the Tourism Statistics Report for October 2022, released on November 30 and shared with Khmer Times by the Ministry of Tourism.

“The Thai tourism market ranks first with 590,000 tourists, accounting for 37.5 percent of the foreign arrivals, followed by Vietnam, China, the United States, Laos, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, France, and the United Kingdom,” said the Ministry of Tourism spokesman Top Sopheak.

The Asia-Pacific region was the main source of visitors for the Kingdom, according to the Tourism Statistics Report.

To attract more and more foreign tourists, particularly from beyond the ASEAN neighbourhood, the Kingdom is making attempts to have direct air links with the destinations from where a large number of tourists originate, including India which sends out a large number of tourists across the world.

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501204801/ ... -cambodia/

Interesting that Thais are the number one tourists to Cambodia at 37.5%. I don't see a lot of them on the ground so maybe they are doing short land crossings to visit casinos.

Interesting that Thais are the number one tourists to Cambodia at 37.5%. I don't see a lot of them on the ground so maybe they are doing short land crossings to visit casinos.

Yep, 2 visit/month, so one thai has 24 arrivals in the year

dont ever trust numbers given out by governments

Official figures aside, I can tell you from personal experience that tourism in Vietnam is fine. I worked like crazy for the last 10 months. Hat these figures do not factor in is the huge domestic market that Vietnam has.

hanno wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 8:12 am Official figures aside, I can tell you from personal experience that tourism in Vietnam is fine. I worked like crazy for the last 10 months. Hat these figures do not factor in is the huge domestic market that Vietnam has.

Right, they don't seem to rely on foreigners that much, which leaves us with the shitty eVisa with no signs of improvement.

hanno wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 8:12 am Official figures aside, I can tell you from personal experience that tourism in Vietnam is fine. I worked like crazy for the last 10 months. Hat these figures do not factor in is the huge domestic market that Vietnam has.

That is really interesting.
Are there differences? For example, are domestic tourists as profitable for you as foreign ones?

Alex wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 9:09 am

hanno wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 8:12 am Official figures aside, I can tell you from personal experience that tourism in Vietnam is fine. I worked like crazy for the last 10 months. Hat these figures do not factor in is the huge domestic market that Vietnam has.

Right, they don't seem to rely on foreigners that much, which leaves us with the shitty eVisa with no signs of improvement.

There's been a slight advancement in recognition of the poor performance of the foreign tourist sector. The VN minister of tourism spoke yesterday at a tourism conference proposing this, urging that . . . yawn. Took them 9 months to wake up after months of tourism industry calls for improving the visa situation. Yet, still no mention of reinstating the 90-day visa.

However, some speculation. The government just announced many arrests of gov officials in Foreign Affairs and Immigration over the repatriation flight bribery scandal, plus the ejection of party officials. Maybe, just maybe, the departments can get on with the job of encouraging more foreign visitors.

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung has proposed that the government consider granting e-visas to all countries and territories, instead of the current 80, to boost foreign tourist numbers.

At a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on post-Covid international tourism recovery on Wednesday, Hung urged the government to extend visa-free stays for foreign tourists to 30 days and to grant visa-on-arrival for foreigners at immigration.

The meeting was held in response to Vietnam's poor tourism recovery following the reopening of the country after the pandemic. Vietnam would only get around 3.5 million international visitors this year, much lower than its target of five million.

Vietnam just waives visas for travelers from 24 countries compared to 162 for Malaysia, 157 for the Philippines and 65 for Thailand.

Hung added that Vietnam's visa-free stays for Western European tourists with a maximum stay of 15 days "is too short compared to other countries in the region as European tourists tend to stay for 3-4 weeks."

Vietnam was one of the first Southeast Asian countries to reopen to international tourism on March 15 after the Covid-19 pandemic thanks to its widespread vaccination campaign.

However, it lagged far behind several of Vietnam's Southeast Asian neighbors in tourism recovery, with Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia already achieving their targets.

https://e.vnexpress.net/news/travel/vie ... 51004.html

Yeah, it's not much to go on. The neighbouring foreign tourist competitors have blown away Vietnam all year.

armchairlawyer wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 9:52 am

hanno wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 8:12 am Official figures aside, I can tell you from personal experience that tourism in Vietnam is fine. I worked like crazy for the last 10 months. Hat these figures do not factor in is the huge domestic market that Vietnam has.

That is really interesting.
Are there differences? For example, are domestic tourists as profitable for you as foreign ones?

Sure, there are differences. Vietnamese are noisier, more impatient, expect a lot of entertainment but they also spend heaps. Average bill is considerably higher than that of foreign guests. They will bring tons of their own snacks but they will also use the restaurant a lot.

cabron wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 2:58 pm

Alex wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 9:09 am

hanno wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 8:12 am Official figures aside, I can tell you from personal experience that tourism in Vietnam is fine. I worked like crazy for the last 10 months. Hat these figures do not factor in is the huge domestic market that Vietnam has.

Right, they don't seem to rely on foreigners that much, which leaves us with the shitty eVisa with no signs of improvement.

Perhaps the Vietnam government do not wish to see swarm of tourists like Thailand or Malaysia. Tourism generates major revenue for any country but they also create numerous civic, social problems, i.e. social behaviors, increase of crime & violence, traffic. Maybe they like it the way it is now.

Maybe. You mean swarms of tourists as in pre-Covid I assume. Even then I don't think that was true of Malaysia. Vietnam are doing well with FDI for factories wanting to relocate from China, so maybe they think that's enough. I doubt it though. I think they will launch a big campaign once Western tourists return to area in big numbers.
I wouldn't say that tourists are responsible for much crime in SE Asian countries. Per capita much less than the locals commit.