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Student: Maiko Yoshida
Mr. Sheridan
TSEA (4)
May 20, 2011
Tourism Out of Control
Angkor was described as the “foremost jewel of Southeast Asian tourism,” and a
cultural magnet, attracting visitors from around the world. It is said that “By 2020, Siem
Reap will become a ‘beautiful and unique tourist city based on a harmony of history,
arts and Khmer culture” (Vannarith).
From the 9th to 15th centuries, the temples belonged to the ancient empire of
Angkor. The Khmer kings built the temples as religious shrines and emblems of
political power (Fawthrop). In 1992 Angkor Wat was designated a World Heritage Site
by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and
became one of the spectacular tourist attractions in Cambodia (Fawthrop). A great many
tourists come to Cambodia in recent years to see those temples. Even though the
number of tourists in Cambodia in 2003 was only 270,000, a million visitors went there
just three years later (Fawthrop). They are especially the middle and high society
tourists from Korea, Japan, Vietnam, China, Thailand, United States and Europe
(Chheang). For Cambodia, tourism is recognized as large sector of industry income.
Nowadays, however, it is going to be a serious problem that traditional temples in
Cambodia are destroyed due to mass tourism. UNESCO’s top official at Angkor said,
“We are very concerned by this unprecedented, uncontrolled acceleration, which is

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damaging the monuments and the local environment” (Smith). Therefore, even though
some argue that tourism brings social and economic benefits, the whole country will not
survive the invasion of mass tourism because of social, economic and environment
problems.
Advocates of Cambodia’s policies on tourism state that it brings many social
benefits. For the demands of tourists, the government has built more and more
electricity and water supply facilities (Chheang). The government thinks that tourism
helps to improve local infrastructure and makes people live comfortably and
conveniently (Vannarith). Second, tourism brings many jobs to Cambodians. It
provided 200,000 jobs to Cambodian people in 2005, but it brought 250,000 jobs in
2006 (Chheang). Tourism brings many jobs such as selling entry tickets to the temple
site (Chheang). Thus, it can be said that as tourists increase, the number of people who
can get employment also increase. The government predicts that tourism economy is
expected to grow by 5.5 % per annum between 2009 and 2018. It will give 1,121,000
jobs, which occupies 15.4 % of total employment, to Cambodian in 2018 (Chheang).
Third, due to the importance of tourism, the government has made education a top
priority. Universities across the country have opened courses on tourism for vocational
students up to students doing master degrees. The Ministry of Tourism supports these
programs and trains tour guides. Students who are successful in their studies receive
tour guide licenses from the ministry (Chheang). People who become official tour
guides can earn good salaries and have a good standard living. With all of these changes,
proponents of Cambodia’s policies on tourism claim that tourism brings many social

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benefits.
While it is true that mass tourism brings social benefits, there are more social
disadvantages to the nation. First of all, the big concern is that there is discrimination of
employment between males and females. There are great number differences of
employment between them. For example, the government trains 66 females and 918
males for English translators. In the case of Japanese translators, even though 489 males
are trained, only 164 females are taught (Chheang). This fact shows that females less
get chance to be employed even though tourism brings those jobs to the local people.
Secondly, there is a traffic problem for local people who live in Siem Reap. Now, they
have to make a detour route because they are denied to access much used public roads
after 6 a.m. They are worried that accessing in daytime will be also denied to
Cambodians (Boland). Those problems make them to use a more circuitous route. It
absolutely wastes of time for them. Thirdly, for Cambodian people, education and
public health services are neglected. (Boland). For workers, they cannot get
compensation even though they get injured on their duty (Vannarith). Also, in Siem
Reap, there are only 363 primary schools and 13 secondary schools (Boland). That is
why illiteracy people are increasing in many parts of the poor province. Poor people
cannot get the job because they are lack of education and trainings (Vannarith). In
addition, the government banned local children to sell postcards, trinkets and cold drink
at temples because they were considered to be annoying the tourists (Boland). With all
of these, it can be assumed that female and children are completely disregarded by
getting more and more tourists.

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The Cambodian government argues that tourism brings great economic
benefits to the nation. Many economists claim that growth, wealth and improvement of
living standard are brought by tourism (Fawthrop). For instance, after agriculture and
the garment industry, the third largest sector of economy was tourism. Then, after the
garment industry, tourism became the second largest sector of income (Chheang). In
addition, the benefit of tourism occupied only 13 percent of GDP, which was US$832
million in 2005. But in 2006, this increased to US$1,594 million, which was 16 percent
of GDP. It is predicted that the total amount of income will reach US$1,705.7 millions
by 2018 (Chheang). There are some people who are glad of increasing number of
tourists. Ra Pheap, who works at Angkor Wat as a garbage sweeper appreciate mass
tourism because she can get much more salary every month (Munthit). Suos Sammang
is another person who is pleased at this situation. She is a souvenir vendor and can
make living because tourists arrive everyday (Munthit). Above all, the government
believes tourism brought a large amount of income and helped local people to get large
earnings.
Despite the fact that tourism may bring some economic benefits to Cambodia,
the truth is that tourism creates more economic hardships than it solves. At first, the
poverty is the most concerned problem. The benefits by tourism do not distribute
equally to people so that poor are left out of distribution of profits (Chheang). Local
Cambodian can get a small share of it. Only international hotels, travel agency and
business companies make benefits so poor farmers get few benefits of hotel expansion
even though the government sets up many hotels or guesthouses (Fawthrop). The worst

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fact is that not enough money goes back to the Cambodian people (Boland). 80 % of
every tourist’s dollar leaks out of the country so that only 20 % of benefits go back to
local people (Fawthrop). The gap between poor and rich makes poor residents who live
in Siem Reap been pushed out. Land prices and food prices have been increasing
dramatically so poor cannot survive rising costs and increasing rents (Fawthrop). The
average salary of the hotel restaurant staffs is about US$60 per month. Although it
seems better to them, they cannot save money because of increasing living cost driven
by tourism (Vannarith). In case of construction workers, they can earn about US$3 per
day and can save only US1.5 for their families. (Vannarith). Therefore, it is obvious that
making their living is really hard for them. In addition, tourism industries are very
vulnerable to external markets and demands. In 1997, the number of tourists dropped
218 million compared to the year before . The reasons of this are political instability in
the aftermath of the armed conflict and the Asian financial crisis. The number of
tourism dropped again because of the SARS epidemic in 2003. Lastly, political
instability in Thailand, which is the conflict between the red shirts and yellow shirts, is
impacting the industry in Cambodia, too (Chheang). Therefore, it is hard to say that
tourism industry is stable economically whatever happens.
Most importantly, mass tourism has been destroying the environment of
Cambodia day by day. The Cambodian government is building more high ways, roads,
electric power plants, water supply and international airports for tourism. Firstly,
because a lot of tourists come to Cambodia, too many planes are flying very near the
temples. The masonries of temples are strained and damaged by them (Fawthrop).

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Secondly, at the famous temples in every morning, tourists climb up the narrow
staircases for viewing a sunset, which cause the temple damage (Smith). Thirdly,
because the number of tourists is increasing, more than 100 hotels were built in recent
few years. In order to construct new toilets and showers, a lot of water is suddenly
needed (Fawthrop). Those large amounts of water for building showers and toilets are
from the underground (Boland). The Bayon temple, which sits on sand, is suddenly
sinking because much underwater is being pumped away. It causes this temple collapse
(Fawthrop). The government does not care about using much water, disposal of sewage
and environmental preserve (Fawthrop). Also, the World Bank warns that water is
polluted by sewage, which flow into the river from the hotels directly (Smith). The one
thing they should do at first is to preserve the park for the future generation (Smith). For
the reason stated above, mass tourism causes destroy the environment of Cambodia.
While mass tourism brings social and economic benefits, it causes more social,
economic and environmental problems. Unless the government of Cambodia takes some
action, Cambodia’s worth temples are going to be collapsed forever because the
government cannot control increasing the number of tourists. The director of tourism at
Angkor said that they are finalizing control of visitors, at last. Surely, the government
must consider this problem seriously and come up with a better solution. The
government has to take some actions for pretending to destroy Cambodia’s spectacle
temples. In order to have sustainable tourism, experiences of tourists and local
participation in the tourism industry are needed.

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Work Cited
Boland, Rosita. “Nothing Sacred for the Tourists.” ireland.com. Development
Cooperation Ireland, Development of Foreign Affairs, 28 Mar. 2005. Web. 29
Apr. 2011.
Chheang, Vannarith. “Tourism Development in Cambodia: Opportunities for Japanese
Companies.” ide.co.jp. N.p, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
Fawthrop, Tom. “Will Angkor Wat survive the invasion of mass tourism?”
twnside.org.sg. Heritage Watch, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2011.
Munthit, Ker. “Tourism boom brings hope, worry to Cambodia’s tourist hub.”
usatoday.com. USA TODAY, 30 Nov. 2006. Web. 23 Apr. 2011.
Smith, Justine. “Tourist invasion threatens to ruin glories of Angkor Wat.”
guardian.co.uk. Guardian News and Media Limited, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2011.
Vannarith, Chheang. “Angkor Heritage Tourism and the Issues of Sustainability: a
Traiangular Perceptions Perspective.” r-cube.ritsumei.ac.jp. N.p. n.d. Web.
14 May. 2011.