Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Manet officiated the 8th River Festival under the theme “Rivers for Peace and Development” on March 16 in Siem Reap province.
The purpose of the River Festival is to promote and promote the tourism potential of the provinces along the river, especially to encourage the people in those provinces to actively participate in the development of riverside cities and community tourism development.
The River Festival plays an important role in inspiring the masses to participate in the conservation and development of sustainable river resources and to participate in achieving a diversified tourism diversification strategy to attract more tourists to visit Cambodia.
According to Xinhua News, Hun Manet said tourism has become a potential catalyst for Cambodia’s sustainable economic growth in the last 30 years, and it will continue to help the kingdom achieve its goals of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income country by 2050.
The Southeast Asian country recorded 5.45 million international tourist arrivals in 2023, generating a gross revenue of 3.08 billion U.S. dollars, or 7.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), he added.
“We hope that the number of international tourists to Cambodia will surpass the pre-COVID-19 pandemic level by 2025,” Hun Manet pointed out.
In the pre-pandemic era, Cambodia registered 6.6 million international tourist arrivals in 2019, earning 4.92 billion dollars in revenue, according to the Ministry of Tourism.
The three-day River Festival themed “River for Peace and Development” kicked off on Friday with the official opening ceremony held on Saturday.
Photo Credit — https://tourism.gov.kh/ (Ministry of Tourism,Cambodia)
