Cambodian Tourism Minister Meets Partners To Discuss Tourism Cooperation
Phnom Penh, January 25, 2024 --
Minister of Tourism of Cambodia, H.E. Sok Soken, held bilateral meetings with some of his ASEAN counterparts and senior representatives of partner organisations to strengthen tourism cooperation and promote resilient tourism development.
The meetings took place in Vientiane, Laos on Jan. 24 on the sidelines of the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2024, the 27th ASEAN Tourism Ministers Meeting and related meetings.
According to the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism, in the meeting with Mr. Brian McFeeters, Senior Vice President and Regional Managing Director of the US-ASEAN Business Council (US-ABC), both sides discussed the strengthening and promotion of enhanced public-private partnerships to boost the development of Cambodia's tourism sector to become more competitive, resilient and sustainable. They pledged to promote cooperation in diversifying tourism products and digital transformation for the tourism industry in Cambodia.
The discussion with Ms. Liz Ortiguera, Managing Director of the Asia-Pacific World Travel and Tourism (WTTC), touched on the potential opportunities for cooperation in promoting sustainable and resilient tourism development. H.E. Minister and Ms. Liz Ortiguera exchanged mutually valuable ideas and jointly committed to boosting cooperation to promote tourism development in Cambodia.
The productive meeting between the Cambodian tourism minister and H.E. Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, Secretary-General of ASEAN, resulted in a mutual consensus regarding a collaborative framework and long-term vision for the ASEAN Tourism Development Strategy beyond 2025. The primary objective of this strategy is to stimulate sustainable growth across the entirety of the ASEAN region.
For his part, H.E. Dr. Kunihiko Hirabayshi, Secretary General of the ASEAN-Japan Centre, reaffirmed to H.E. Sok Soken his commitment to continue to strongly support Cambodia in the training of tourism professionals and to increase the efficiency of tourism development to another level.
During their bilateral meeting, Cambodian Minister of Tourism H.E. Sok Soken and H.E. Dato Sri Tiong King Sing, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture of Malaysia, pledged to enhance the effectiveness of the Cambodia-Malaysia Tourism Cooperation Working Group to strengthen the organisation of activities for developing partnerships and promoting joint tourism promotion.
The discussion with H.E. Ms. Sudawan Wangsuphakitkosol, Minister of Tourism and Sports of the Kingdom of Thailand, focused on better joint tourism cooperation opportunities. Both ministers agreed to promote the mechanism of implementation of joint activities on Cambodia-Thailand tourism cooperation and continue to promote tourism cooperation in the sub-regional and regional framework to be more fruitful.
