Cambodia's tourism sector reels from Covid, hopes for 'new normal'

PHNOM PENH: The Tourism Ministry is hoping for a "new normal" by the end of this year but right now hoteliers, tour operators and travel agents are suffering from a far from normal situation. Rising cases of the Delta variant offer no prospect of an end to the Coronavirus pandemic. Many businesses have closed, and others are on their last legs.

With business travelers forced to quarantine for two weeks and no decision on when to start reissuing tourist visas, international arrivals have fallen off a cliff. Passenger traffic at the Kingdom's three international airports was down more than 93 percent in the year through to the end of July, compared with the first seven months of last year.