Prime Minister Hun Sen said Saturday that more Cambodians are traveling abroad than ever before, with almost one million doing so over the recent New Year holiday season alone.
The total number of trips abroad by Cambodians in all of 2007 is not yet available, but Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said Sunday that he expects the number to be above the roughly 3 million international trips counted in 2006.
“It means Cambodians have the money to travel to Thailand, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Foreign tourists visited Cambodia, and Cambodians visited abroad,” Hun Sen said at a groundbreaking ceremony for a road up Bokor mountain in Kampot province.
Hun Sen added that Cambodians traveling within the country numbered 5.7 million last year.
Tourism officials said this is the first time the Tourism Ministry has cooperated with the Ministry of Interior’s Immigration Department to calculate the number of Cambodians going abroad.
Khieu Kanharith said that the majority of locals who traveled abroad did so for business and visited neighboring countries, like Thailand and Vietnam.
“This is showing that the Cambodian middle class has increased which is good for our economy. People’s living standards have improved,” he said.
However SRP President Sam Rainsy said he was concerned the figure indicated an outflow of Cambodians seeking work in neighboring countries, rather than a burgeoning middle class gaining momentum.
“I don’t believe that many Cambodians traveled overseas while they are having difficulty in their living standards,” he said. “I am concerned people are seeking employment. They are not tourists but slaves. The government wants to hide the information that they didn’t have employment.”
Hem Chanly, managing director of the travel agency Hola Travel Cambodia Co Ltd, said Sunday that his work over the last two years has reflected a significant increase in the number of Cambodians traveling abroad.
“It is also the middle class. It’s not only wealthy people,” he said.
The difficulty of obtaining visas has limited Cambodians’ ability to visit countries outside Southeast Asia, Hem Chanly said. “People want to go far, but have problems getting visas,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Emily Lodish)