China-based Shenzhen Win-Win Decoration and Designing plans to build 100 budget hotels in Cambodia to capitalise on the growth in tourism, especially from the Chinese mainland.
Company president Tao Jia met Tourism Minister Thong Khon last week to talk about the investment. “The company will bring its experience of Shenzhen province to Cambodia and share its knowledge of the hotel industry,” said Tao. Her company would invest in hotels in Phnom Penh and coastal provinces.
Khon said Cambodia’s tourism industry still had huge potential for new investment, so the company could do a feasibility study, especially in coastal areas and some islands. He supported their investment in Cambodia.
A feasibility study would also pave the way to assess the viability of building holiday homes to attract Chinese retirees, noted Khon. The Minister also pointed out that the government had set up a coastal development committee comprising officials from the the tourism and environment ministries to zone land.
Taing Sochet Krisna, director of Preah Sihanouk’s provincial tourism department, said the province had thousands of hotel rooms and guesthouses but it still needed more investment because of the rising number of tourists. “I think it is very important to have more investment in the hotel industry here because we have very high potential,” said Sochet Krisna. “We have an increase of more than 15 percent of tourists every year so we need more accommodation.”
He said that since the government set the goal of attracting two million Chinese tourists per year, the number of Chinese visiting his province had increased a lot. “Investment in budget hotels in my province will play an important role to serve tourists and make them extend their stay here,” he added.
Sochet Krisna said the province had about 80 hotels with a total of more than 4,000 rooms and more than 300 guesthouses. Tourism Ministry figures show that about 126 million Chinese tourists visited different places around the world and 20 million visited ASEAN nations.
Last year Cambodia welcomed about 270,000 Chinese tourists in the first quarter of the year, a rise of 25 percent compared with the same period last year. At present, there are 94 direct flights a week between Cambodia and China, with 51 flights to Phnom Penh, 31 flights to Siem Reap and 12 flights to Sihanoukville.
