The Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia is banking on increasing Indian tourists' footfalls by 3-4 times in the current year after robust growth in India's tourism sector.

Cambodia's minister of tourism Hul Seila said India represented huge travel potential for his country. “We have launched [the] Cambodia-India Tourism year for the first time this year to tap the Indian market which has potential, as the country's tourism is booming. We are witnessing a positive momentum and expect that there will be a lot more tourists from India," he said on the sidelines of the Business, Leisure, Travel and MICE Tourism Exhibition 2024 (BLTM).

In 2023, Cambodia hosted 68,836 Indian travellers. The figure was over 91 per cent of pre-Covid (2019) levels when the country received 75,286 visitors from India. In the first six months of 2024, the number of tourists coming from India to Cambodia was around 32,000-33,000, some 17 per cent more compared to the figure of the same time a year ago.

Cambodia’s participation in the BLTM is aimed at enhancing its tourism potential and strengthening tourism cooperation between Cambodia and India—in line with the ministry's “BUILD + 3Ds” strategic initiative—while also promoting the “Visit Siem Reap 2024” campaign to attract more Indian tourists and investors to Cambodia, Seila said. The country is set to launch digital campaigns soon and collaborate with travel partners to increase awareness of its various destinations. "We are also collaborating with influencers to promote tourism in India to showcase what Cambodia has to offer as a preferred tourist destination," he said.

Currently, there are four direct flights connecting India and Cambodia. IndiGo is likely to introduce a flight in November that will connect Siem Reap with India, which will take the total number of direct flights between India and Cambodia to five per week and help attract Indian travellers, according to Seila.

Cambodia has visa-on-arrival facilities for Indian tourists. However, the country also provides visas at its embassy in New Delhi as well as e-visas. While the country mainly gets leisure travellers, religious visitors and those who visit for medical treatment purposes, Seila said that Cambodia "wants to showcase that we are very much capable of organising [and] arranging, big business events or MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) and weddings."

(With inputs from PTI)