Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The government has made no attempt to finger the culprits who are pumping or
drilling for water or measuring how much water is being sucked out of the ground. That
might discourage investment in tourism.
South Korea is a major patron of the Cambodian tourism industry in Siem Reap. Over-
all, South Koreans account for billions of dollars of private investment in the Cambodi-
an economy, with a strong accent on tourism. (Only China has invested more money in
Cambodia.)
Korean visitors fly to Cambodia on one of Korean Airlines' nearly daily flights from
Seoul. In Siem Reap, Koreans have invested in restaurants, hotels and karaoke bars. The
largest project is a new $1.6 billion international airport for Siem Reap that, in theory,
could bring up to 14 million tourists to the temples every year. Another South Korean
developer is building a $400 million casino resort near Angkor with the avowed goal of
drawing the high rollers from Macao and Singapore. The government not only promised
the Korean company incentives like corporate tax holidays and low gaming levies; Prime
Minister Hun Sen himself entertained the developer in Phnom Penh.
Koreans are so favored that one enterprise received rare government approval to stage
variety shows in Angkor Wat itself. A Cambodian whistle-blower complained that the com-
pany had drilled holes in the temple to light the “Angkor Night Show.” The show was
canceled, although there was no punishment for the Korean company. Instead, the Cam-
bodian whistle-blower was forced to leave the country under threat of arrest by the govern-
ment.
The government is determined to turn Angkor into a tourism money machine. To
which many may ask, what's wrong with bringing in millions of dollars to a poor country?
The answer is that those tourist dollars do little to help most of the people in Cambodia.
Siem Reap is the prime example.
In the 1960s, before all the war and genocide, Siem Reap was the richest per capita
province in the country, famous for its rice fields and fish. Today with its multibillion-dol-
lar tourism business it is the poorest per capita. The promise of tourism to raise the liveli-
hoods of the poor has failed miserably in Siem Reap. The “leakage” of money out of the
province is among the highest in the world, according to Douglas Broderick, the United
Nations resident coordinator in Phnom Penh.
“More tourism money stays with the locals in parts of Africa than it does in Siem Reap,”
he said.
Broderick pointed to a 2009 United Nations Development Program Report which said
that the majority of tourist spending doesn't reach the poor. “The pro-poor benefit is very
low in Siem Reap, an estimated seven percent (of tourist receipts),” a statistic that com-
pares badly to neighboring Vietnam and Laos. This is not the result of lack of money: at
least one-third of direct foreign investment goes to tourism in Cambodia. Instead, the re-
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