The Ministry of Tourism announced the implementation of the “Siem Reap Provincial Tourism Promotion and Attraction Strategic Plan 2023-2026”, which is part of the “Siem Reap Tourism Development Master Plan 2021-2035”.

The purpose of the three-year plan is to launch activities that focus on attracting short- and medium-term tourists to Siem Reap by prioritising the promotion of tourism activities and attraction options in the area.

The plan also aims to increase awareness of Siem Reap’s other name the “North Star”.

In order to achieve these objectives, the strategic plan has identified certain goals, including identifying methods to attract tourists to Siem Reap and strengthening tourism infrastructure.

There will be 21 activities implemented from 2023 to 2026 to attract tourists to visit Siem Reap and build visitor numbers to about three million international tourists and four million national tourists by 2026.

Sy Ratana, a tour guide in Siem Reap, said that the tourism sector has improved since the pandemic ended because during COVID-19 there were zero tourists, but tourists numbers have not yet returned to pre pandemic levels.

However, the livelihoods of tour guides is now much better, he said.

He added that recently there have been many tourists from Spain and Japan because of holidays in those countries.

Chhay Sivlin, the president of the Cambodia Association of Travel Agents, said that this strategic plan is a good way to attract tourists to visit the country.

“On our own it is difficult to produce new services for tourists so to achieve this we need the cooperation from all private tour companies and authorities to ensure progress in the tourism sector,” she said.

Development of the tourism sector, she said, is very important because there is a lot of competition from neighbouring countries, so it is good that the government and private sector are working together on this task.

“The strategic plan’s objective of achieving tourist numbers of 7 million by 2026 is achievable,” she said.

“Our country already has many ancient temples which are regarded as cultural tourism, as well as many natural places like islands, and coastal tourism areas, thus we have to make new more products to ensure that tourists want to visit our country,” she added.