November 7, 2011

Tourism will drive food service sector growth

[PHNOM PENH POST]

Cambodia will require an additional 1,000 restaurants by 2020 to serve the Kingdom’s growing tourism sector, Ministry of Tourism officials say.

By 2020, seven million international visitors, and as many as 10 million domestic tourists, were expected to visit the country’s tourist destinations each year, Tith Chantha, general director of the General Department of the Ministry of Tourism, said at the inaug-ural “Clean Restaurants, Clean Food Shops and Good Service” seminar last week.

“We hope that by 2020, we will have between 2,000 to 2,500 restaurants in the country,” he said, adding that Cambodia currently has about 900 restaurants that cater to tourists.

The demand for restaurants could create up to 40,000 jobs in the next nine years, he said, with the tourism industry expected to earn US$4 billion per year in revenues by 2020.

The Ministry of Tourism estimated that 2.8 million international tourists will visit Cambodia in 2011, a 15 per cent year-on-year increase on the 2.5 million that visited in 2010.

Ho Vanny, co-president of the Working Group for the Development of Tourism, said the Kingdom’s growing popularity with international tourists and the pending 2015 ASEAN Economic Community mean more restaurants are required.

“By 2015, all ASEAN countries’ borders will be open,” he said, which may result in greater numbers of tourists entering the Kingdom.

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