It’s a motorcycle taxi driver’s dream in Siem Reap on most days, as fresh hordes of moto-less tourists come looking for a lift.
But what a difference a rule can make. Heeding the call of his Asean partners, Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Council of Ministers have decreed that foreign tourists may drive across the border and on to Siem Reap, where they may ferry themselves around the ancient city at their own air-conditioned convenience.
The measure is one of dozens meant to tear down barriers between Asean members, but motorcycle and automobile taxi drivers in Siem Reap fear that the new rule will cut deeply into their business.
“If the government allows a tourist entry for those with their own car, then taxi drivers will lose jobs,” said Moeung Sonn, the director of Eurasie Travel. “Taxi driving is an important job to make money to feed families,” he said, adding that it usually pays enough to support a family with four of five children.
Or it could hurt local businesses if tourists bring their own food and water tucked inside their car, no longer needing to buy from the many vendors who set up in Siem Reap.
Others agree that the problem could spiral out of control.
The order may even encourage car smuggling if smugglers can learn how to disguise themselves as tourists and then sell their car as soon as they pass through the border area, said Hout Borith, head of the National Association of Tourism Enterprise.
Moeung Sonn he plans to write a letter to Hun Sen asking him to prohibit foreign tourists from driving into the country in order to protect the local transportation industry.
Today, some 600 taxis serve tourists from the border area, Poipet, O’Smach, Anlong Veng, Pailin, Koh Kong and elsewhere. At least 300 taxis in Siem Reap town alone serve tourists, according to Moeung Sonn.
Each taxi driver makes $20 to $25, a motorcycle taxi driver makes $7 to $10, and remorque drivers make $5 to $7 daily, according to Moeung Sonn. The drive from Poipet to Siem Reap town nets a taxi driver about $40 to $50 daily, he added.
The order allowing foreign tourists to drive into Cambodia comes with a special clause allowing them to come in even if they have right-hand drive vehicles. Most tourists probably will, as right-hand drive cars are the national standard in Thailand.
Others also said they were upset because the order would limit the profits seen by Cambodians.
“Before they drive here, the [foreigners] will fill their gasoline tanks in their own country,” said Prince Norodom Chakrapong, the president of Royal Phnom Penh Airways. “All the profit will return back.”
But not all taxi drivers are complaining.
The head of a major taxi driving business said most of his clients are picked up at the airport, so the allowance for foreign tourists should not change his day-to-day workload.
“We are serving tourists from the airport to the Angkor Wat complex,” said Kim Phally, head of the Tourism Transportation Association in Siem Reap with 228 taxi drivers and 94 motorcycle taxi drivers.
The government’s push to allow drivers into the country comes at a time when all Asean members are opening their borders to inter-Asean tourism; measures to reduce barriers, waive visas and generally make it easier to travel within the region have been encouraged.
Cambodia will welcome these tourists as much as possible, said Thong Khon, secretary of state for tourism.
They must not sell their car while in Cambodia, he added, and have to go through customs at the border checkpoints as well.
The new order also cuts through a mountain of paperwork, including approvals from the top levels of the government, that made it difficult for tourists to bring their right-hand drive cars into the country, he said. Now tourists need only file their paperwork at the border checkpoint.
The order follows similar efforts in Phnom Penh to stop drivers from traveling the roadways in right-hand drive vehicles; the government even ordered people with right-hand drive cars to convert their cars to left-hand drive at their own cost.
The push was meant to prevent traffic accidents.
Despite the good it may do for inter-Asean travel, the new rule for tourists has some environmentalists and preservationists worried.
The Angkor Wat complex cannot handle many more cars, and the influx of traffic threatens to destroy the site’s heritage, said Vann Molyvann, the former president of the Apsara Authority.
