An estimated 4.8 million tourists visited Cambodia in 2015, up 6 percent from the 4.5 million visitors last year, Ministry of Tourism Undersecretary of State Top Sopheak said on Sunday.
The mark falls short of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s projection of 5 million visitors announced in February, but matches a prediction made by the Ministry of Tourism in July.
Speaking at the Cambodia Rice Forum in Phnom Penh, Mr. Sopheak said he remained optimistic about the health of the industry, highlighting that travelers spent $3.5 billion in 2015, up from $3 billion in 2014.
“In this year, there would be more promotion and push to attract more international tourists to visit Cambodia…to raise the people’s standard of living,” he said, noting that the ministry planned to do more promotion on the U.S.-based television news network CNN.
The ministry’s November 2015 tourism statistics report—the latest one available—shows that Vietnamese tourists constituted around 20 percent of all arrivals to Cambodia, followed by visitors from China, South Korea, Laos and Thailand.
