There are over 47 active hotels on Koh Rong Island, and well over 2,000 rooms, despite its small population of around 4,000 permanent citizens.

Construction of new hotels continues across the island in
2023, alongside near complete public works such as roads, electricity and lighting networks; and longer-term installments such as the island’s recently announced international airport.

Local business people suggest a growing supply of new hotel rooms will quickly be filled when the peak season arrives at the end of 2023, and early trends suggest Cambodia is burgeoning quickly in the luxury tourism market, with new rooms $100 per night and upwards.

And while the rainy season this year has been a slow one, with cancelled flights and turbulent weather, tourism operators on the island are excited for the sunny peak season ahead.

Alexandre Rebibo, a French national, first started building the Anaya Resort on Koh Rong in 2018 and acquired his second resort through purchase from a previous owner on the island in October of 2019, Tamu Koh Rong.

As owner and operator, Rebibo has lived on the island permanently with his wife and children since 2018.

New hotels under construction on Koh Rong in 2023 “are not really for backpackers,” commented 38-year-old Rebibo.

“Backpacker operations are mainly located at Koh Touch (main pier),” he explained, adding, “while on Sok San, Longset and Pagoda beach it’s mostly 4-star hotels
and luxury villas starting around $100 per night.”

“Most of the new hotel construction we are seeing on Koh Rong this year has a higher-value tourism target,” he said.

“On Pagoda beach,” Rebibo’s resort is located, “we have between 70 to 80 percent European guests coming from travel agencies and individual booking plans,” he said.

He noted too that European travellers are feeling the pinch this year, and expecting more from end vendors: “Due to the fact that travelling from Europe is more expensive compared to previously, we realised this year that travellers are wealthier guests and more demanding of the hotel and its staff,” said Rebibo.

“Another important point affecting high-value tourism increases to Koh Rong in 2023 is that travel agencies are now selling Cambodia as a single destination only, without including Laos, Vietnam and/or Thailand in a package tour type deal, as they did previously,” he explained.

Standalone options to Cambodia give Koh Rong, one of the country’s most beautiful white sand islands, a great chance of being visited by regional travellers with larger budgets for their trips and a penchant for sun and sand.

Most of the guests arriving in Koh Rong are coming from Phnom Penh expressway and Siem Reap flights, noted Alexandre, and his two hotels have continued to grow their clientele steadily over the last 3 years.

Koh Rong Island now has all major destinations connected by hard roads, a big improvement for tourists looking to explore the whole island and increasing the ease of new development by private hoteliers.

Meanwhile, electricity and lighting grids have also almost completed across the entire island, in a large public work program taken on by the new municipality, officially divided from Sihanoukville province authority in 2019 into a self-governing region.

The Island’s first international airport is also underway, slated for completion in 2027/2028 under the  Royal Group initiative announced this year.

Foreign business operators such as Rebibo and others on the island, invest in the tourism businesses through long-term leaseholds generally, he noted. Meanwhile, Khmer-owned operators in Koh Rong preferred direct land investment.

“Managing and constructing hotel businesses on the island has proved extremely difficult in terms of forecasting the construction and ongoing operational costs,” however, explained Rebibo.

“Everything is more expensive on an island without electricity when compared to the mainland,” he said, “and the logistics are also not easy to manage.”

“Anything we need we must order from Sihanoukville and wait for the supply boat,” he said.

When the season is wet and stormy, as it is now, there are natural delays and additional costs.

“When we first started construction in 2018, power and water outages were also common,” he said.

Despite the challenges of the business, Rebibo is very confident about the island’s future as a world-class tourism destination in years to come and expects a fruitful high season as the sun comes out this year.

“We were expecting a better low season this year,” said Alexandre. “Due to bad weather conditions and the fact that Sihanoukville airport has very few flights every day, our occupancy is low this season.”

“Nonetheless,” he concluded, “we expect the forecast for the next high season to be very good.”