GETTING IT WRONG - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 63

and the sophisticated French colonial legacy that could be seen in the cities and towns
with their blend of Cambodian and French colonial architecture that was as seductive to
modern tastes as the overlay of the British Raj in India. The fact that the country had been
forbidden to tourists for decades made it all the more attractive. Cambodia was “authent-
ic,” with its tragic history, delicate art, dance and cuisine, and its reputation for enchant-
ment as well as cruelty.
Cambodia's timing couldn't have been better. Tourism was gaining the respect of eco-
nomists and development experts. Over the last two decades it has become the second-
largest source of foreign exchange, after oil, for half of the world's poorest nations. The
United Nations World Tourism Organization describes tourism as “one of the few devel-
opment opportunities for the poor” and publishes thick reports on how those poor nations
can use the tourism industry to create modern infrastructure, higher standards of living
and improvements in the environment. That rosy outcome is a rarity among the one hun-
dred poorest countries that earn up to 5 percent of their gross national product selling
themselves to foreign tourists who marvel at their exotic customs, buy suitcases of souven-
irs and take innumerable photographs of stunning sites.
Cambodian tourism started out well. Roland Eng, a young politician and diplomat, was
named the first minister of tourism in 1993. He was an inspired choice. Like many of his
compatriots, Eng had suffered the anguish of losing his parents and all but one of his sib-
lings during the Khmer Rouge regime. He had been stranded as a student in Paris during
that time. In Europe he served as a private secretary for Prince Norodom Sihanouk and
later became a functionary and diplomat for the Cambodian non-Communists in exile.
Worldly, multilingual and intelligent, Eng was a welcome face to foreign visitors.
As the first minister of tourism, Eng saw his role as a mixture of diplomacy and business.
Diplomacy because in the modern world people shape their opinions about foreign na-
tions during visits as tourists as much as from reading newspapers or contemporary histor-
ies. Tourism could resurrect Cambodia's reputation from its low point as the site of the
“killing fields” of the Khmer Rouge genocide. On the business side, tourism could set the
tone for quality development and allow Cambodia to skip the early, shabby stage of tacky
hotels that foul the cities and beaches of other nations while doing little to raise living
standards.
Eng aimed high. At the start of Cambodia's questionable recovery, he pushed aside low-
end proposals from foreign companies with “friends” in the Cambodian government and
instead reached a deal with the luxury Raffles Hotel chain based in Singapore to invest
$80 million to renovate Cambodia's most celebrated hotels: Le Royale in Phnom Penh
and the Grand Hotel outside of Angkor. “It was daring of them, in 1993 and 1994,” he
told me. Those hotels are now ranked among the best in the country and Art Deco mas-
terpieces of Asia.