The Positive and Negative Effect of Tourism

Cambodia is a land of potentials, bouncing back from being colonized by the French in 1884 and from years of dejection from three civil wars in 1970, 1975 and a genocide period after 1975 (ministry of education grade 12 course book). According to Ericson and Ronning, the number of visitors to Cambodia only increased after 1995, two years of after its full independence in 1993 (Ericson and Ronning,2008) now the industry is proving to be “a proclaimed World’s best tourist destination” ( Avaramoiv, 2016). However where there’s light, there is always darkness and even with many benefits from tourism. Cambodia is also facing many negative effects.

Positive effect of tourism in Cambodia

Cambodia adopted the name “The Kingdom of Wonder” to advertise tourism in the country (Nhean, 2013). According to The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC), they had created an eight year plan put into action from 2012-2020, based on potentials such as Cultural and Natural resources of the land to better develop the tourism industry, The plan will revolve around the Cultural tourism and the ecotourism that is the soul of the industry here in Cambodia, which will uphold the foundation for the long-term development of a new tourist destination (RCG, 2012)

Another factor that will positively affect Cambodia is that tourism will create around 800,000 jobs which predicted by the RGC for the year 2020 and will also “Accelerate its gross domestic product (GDP)”. They also hope that this new route they are taking will create a new history, one that is better for country. This prediction could come true, looking at the record shown by the World Travel and Tourism Council, Cambodia’s tourism provided a 3.1% growth in GDP and supported 6 million jobs in the field in 2016 (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2016). As of today Cambodia is one of the world’s most popular in Cultural tourism and ecotourism as it received the world’s best tourist destination award in 2016.

Due to Demand of the currently busy airport, the government approved the plan for a new $1.5billion dollar airport, “The new airport must have higher passenger capacity to handle the number of international visitors” said Chhay Sivlin, head of the Cambodian Association of Travel Agent ( Meng and Nhean, 2018).

Negative effect of tourism in Cambodia

One issue Cambodia is facing is the misbehaviors of tourists, especially when it comes to religious sites, the people can get very offended. The archeological park of Angkor Wat have had many nudity-related accidents and thus increased the restrictions placed on visitors at the site. “It’s an offense to the culture of others regardless of religion” said Kerya Chau Sun, a member of the Apsara police (Ma and Cripps, 2017).

Another effect that is troubling Cambodia is the bias decisions made by the government. With its effort to develop the industry the government had made a decision to create a plan to better suit the needs of the country that brings in the most visitors, China with its Chinese-ready plan. The plan intent for five long years including having signs for shops with Chinese translations and making use Chinese currency (Chnadara, 2016). The Chinese-ready plan is very evident in Sihanouk Ville, one of the cities in Cambodia that is now being enclave by Chinese. Worries flood in the communities of locals owned businesses on how the new developments in their area will affect them. Beaches that are usually flooded with tourists now deserted, Casinos where Cambodian themselves are not welcomed and even shop that lines the streets displaying Chinese and not Khmer (Fifield, 2018).

Conclusion

The rise of tourism is beneficial to Cambodia including the plan to create its new and finest airport, contribution to the growth of its GDP and supplying millions of jobs in the field. However with millions of visitors each year clash of culture is bound to occur, first with the misbehaving tourists causing bans to be placed upon religious site. Moreover Cambodians are worried about the investments made by foreign visitors to have major consequences to the local economy, especially in one of the biggest tourist attraction in the country Sihanouk Ville. Taking the situation into consideration having a city that is being taken over by another culture and taking the local economy away from locals is very problematic indeed and has to be taken care of right away.