PHNOM PENH, Aug. 3 (PNA/Xinhua) — China has overtaken South Korea to become the largest tourist source of Cambodia’s Angkor world heritage site, Cambodia’s state-run Agence Kampuchea Press (AKP) reported on Monday, citing a senior tourism official.
Ngov Sengkak, chief of Tourism Department in Siem Reap province where the Angkor Archeological Park is located, said more than 190,000 Chinese tourists visited the site in the first half of this year, representing about 18 percent of the 1.08 million foreigners who visited the temple.
“In the first half of 2014, China was the second largest source of tourists to the Angkor after South Korea, but now, China has overtaken South Korea to become the largest source of tourists to the temple,” he was quoted by AKP as saying, adding that most of the Chinese tourists stayed two nights/three days.
Angkor Archeological Park, inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1992, is the kingdom’s most popular tourist destination. It is located in Siem Reap province, some 315 km northwest of the capital of Phnom Penh.
An entrance fee to the site is US$ 20 a day for a foreigner, US$ 40 for a three-day visit, and US$ 60 for a week-long visit.
According to the government’s figures, the temple earned a gross revenue of nearly US$ 31 million from ticket sales in the first six months of 2015.