Newsletter Cambodia, September / October 2000

PHNOM PENH

Lao Aviation Ready to Fly Pakse - Siem Reap Route

TTB Weekly, September 18-24^th 00

By Yuphaporn Lertsattakit

Lao Aviation plans a new service between Pakse in Champasak province and Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor Wat, according to Vilakan Malavan, its marketing manager.

“ We want to commence the services as soon as possible, but have to wait for the new terminal at Pakse airport to open,” said Mr Vilakan.

The airport terminal was due to be ready this May but has now been delayed to November.

Thee airline plans to fly twice weekly between Pakse and Siem Reap, using ATR aircraft with 70 seats. Flight time is 45 minutes and the proposed one-way airfare will be between US$70 and US$80.

“ Once these flights start, we can support the three-country Suwannaphumi campaign,” he said.

Visitors travelling from Laos to Siem Reap must cross the border at Chong Mek. Once the Siem Reap flights start, Pakse will become a secondary gateway to explore Laos and combine the tour with a trip to Cambodia.

The airline has scheduled 10 flights a week between Pakse and Vientiane and three daily services from Vientiane to Luang Prabang for the winter season, using ATR aircraft. Laos intends to expand the airport eventually to accommodate larger Fokker jet aircraft.

“ We are modifying facilities and equipment at the airport to upgrade it to a customs airport and hope to have visa-on-arrival status soon,” Mr Vilakan said.

The airline also wants to connect Pakse with Bangkok and Pattaya to serve both Lao and foreign visitors.

PHNOM PENH

Huge casino to rival Angkor Wat

Phnom Penh Post 29 September-12^th October 00

By Anette Marcher

Malaysian resort company Ariston is planning to build a $100 million hotel, conference and casino complex near the river in Phnom Penh.

Ariston, which runs the Naga floating Casino, has bought 1.4 hectares of land between the Buddhist Institute and the Bassac squatter area and plans to begin construction next month. The company hopes that the resort will be finished in 14 to 16 months.

The massive complex, named Nexus Naga Hotel, will include 750 hotel rooms, conference facilities for 900 people, shops, restaurants, a nightclub and a casino.

The resort has been designed by a US architect group, Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, which has previously designed renowned venues such as Sun City in South Africa, the Venetian City in Las Vegas and Ritz-Carlton hotels.

“ Our intention is to build the biggest landmark in Cambodia after Angkor Wat. As the temples become more and more famous, the capital shouldn’t be ignored,” said Ariston chairman Tan Sri Chen Lip Keong.

Nexus Naga Hotel will target both Western and East Asian tourists, who Keong believes will increasingly be attracted to Cambodia.

“ With the only landmark in the capital, we can position ourselves as a winner. We will have a considerable chance of success,” Keong said.

Controversy has surrounded casino operations in Phnom Penh, with Prime Minister Hun Sen is suing an order last year that all gambling facilities must be moved at least 200 kilometres away from the capital. The casino at he Holiday Hotel chose to move to Sihanoukville, but Ariston took the matter to court and won the right for the Naga floating casino to stay.

In 1994 the Government signed an agreement with Ariston permitting the company to run the only casino operation in Cambodia. However, other gambling permits were later handed out, so Ariston chose to settle for an agreement that makes them the only casino operator within 200 kilometres of Phnom Penh.

“ We are decent people. We want to honour that agreement, and we want the Government to honour it too,” Keong said.

According to plans, all casino operations on the Naga Floating Casino will be moved into the new resort and the boat towed away.

KOMPONG SPEU

Soldiers now ecologists at old battlefield on Kirirom

Phnom Penh Post, 29 September-12^th October 00

By Bou Saroeun

A group of soldiers retuned to their former battlefield in the Kirirom National Park recently, not to reminisce about the war, but to view the area through different eyes.

“ This place was once a battlefield we came here to fight. But now we come here to enjoy nature,” said Oum Sok, Chief of Training for at Kampong Speu’s Number three military school,

Sok was just one of 32 soldiers attending an environmental  training course in Kirirom organized by a local environmental NGO, Mlup Baiton (Green Shadow), earlier this month.

The soldiers were divided into four groups and led through the hills of Kirirom once a favorite holiday sport for King Sihanouk by rangers who helped them identity some of the park’s 168 bird species, as well as its plants and wildlife.

Soun Sokhon, a guerrilla warfare trainer, said it was a terrible shame that war had led to the destruction of so much of Cambodia’s nature.

Most Cambodians have heard the word “ Environment” but they don’t know what it means, he said.

“ But now we understand its meaning and its importance. If we protect us from flooding and droughts, and provide good habitats for wildlife. With the war over, soldiers must now fight to defend nature,” he said.

During the hike a ranger asked the soldiers if they could explain what activities damage nature. One soldier, starting to catch on, picked up a piece of plastic rubbish left by a visitor and said: “ This affects the environment,”

At the end of the trip there was a group discussion about sustainable forest use and the causes of environmental degradation.

A soldier noted that much of the park’s destruction is caused by illegal land-grabbers.

“ The people who take the land in the park are high-ranking Government officials who do not respect the law,” he said.

Sok Tina, a Mlup Baitong trainer, said the Kampong Speu environment suffers from wildlife poaching and illegal logging.

Tina  said now that fighting has ended, soldiers have a duty to protect the environment as well as develop the country.

“ We expect our environment will improve because people are now concerned about the loss of nature and hate illegal logging.” He said.

“ People now understand that damage to the environment is damage to themselves. I’ve seen some good results from this course, but today I really felt like they had become environmentalists.”

The trainer said this was only the second time a group of military commanders have visited the park as eco-tourists.

When a group form Pich Nil NCO School visited, one soldier noted with concern that out of the 163 bird species documented in the park, only two or there had been spotted that day.

The soldier asked the rangers to enforce anti-hunting regulations more strictly. But Park Director Nil Tun said the soldiers must help as well by controlling illegal sawmills on the borders of the park.

Amanda Bradley, Mlup Baitong’s coordinator, said, “ At the moment, we are dealing with a captive audience, but in the future we’d like to see the rangers attracting non-captive audiences as well, and making outreach and environmental education a standard feature at the park,”

Bradley said Kirirom now receives over 10,000 visitors a year.  

PHNOM PENH

Sofitel to Leave Hotel Cambodia

Phnom Penh Post October 13-26, 00

It is not mentioned by who is written this article.

The Sofitel Group, which has managed the Hotel Cambodia since 1992, will end its contract with the hotel form March 2001, according to a source within Sofitel who declined to be named.

“ Management made the decision,” said the source with out further comment.

The Cambodiana, owned by Cambodiana Investment Singapore Private Ltd. Maintained high occupancy during the UNTAC years and immediately afterwards. But competiton saw occupancy rates at the Cambodiana drop in the late 90s.

PHNOM PENH

Changes in the air

Phnom Penh Post October 13-26, 00

It is not mentioned by who is written this article.

Royal Air Cambodge (RAC) is working out a joint venture with an unnamed Chinese airline, according to a government official.

“ Without a new joint venture RAC will not be moving forwards because it has no money,” said Sith Sakol, department director at the Civil Aviation Authority. He said RAC would compensate its Malaysian shareholders be fore signing any new agreement.

Industry sources say RAC has run up losses of $20 million in recent years.

Competition for RAC is likely to get stiffer with the announcement this week that Bangkok Airways is setting up a new subsidiary called Siem Reap Airways. Flights between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap are scheduled to start on Oct 29.

SIEM REAP

New Tourist Moving in Old Land Siem Reap will need more Rooms Officials say

 The Cambodia Daily  October 17, 00

 By Thet Sambath and Jody Mcphillips

Chrey Village, Siem Reap province – the Slim pole, stuck in the middle of a rice paddy, doesn’t look like much. But to farmer Ven Von, it represents the end of  life as he knows it.

The pole marks the path of a road to be built east of Siem Reap town. The road is slated to plow through Ven Von’s ancestral home, a wooden stilt house shaded by banana and mango trees.

The road is expected to carry tourists from Route 6 to an envisioned lavish complex of hotels, restaurants, shops, museums and sports facilities southeast of the Angkor temple complex.

So far, the ling-delayed Siem Reap hotel zone exists only on paper. But already hundreds of families have been shifted to make way for the planned 1,007-hectare development, and scores more are waiting for the ax to fall.

“ If  I have to sell here, where will I live?” Ven Von asked, “ If we go to a new place, we will be separated from the old people in the village, the people we have known all our lives.”

The 60-year-old father of three said he regrets that “ I got this land from my ancestors, but I will not be able to leave it to my grandchildren.”

In phase one of the project, 262 families have been moved from a 24-hectare site at the western edge of the hotel zone. Ven Von’s home is within phase two, a 500 hectare. Area southeast of the first site.

Bun Narith is the man with the difficult job of telling people they must go. He is the deputy director general of the Apsara Authority, which since January has spent $1 million to clear the zone.

“ It is very hard to do this,” he said, especially when families have lived on their land for generations. But, he said, it has to be done, because there is little land left along Route 6 to be developed.

According to a royal zoning sub-decree adopted in 1995, the hotel zone was created “in the largely unoccupied and nonarable land” northeast of Siem Reap, to add needed rooms with as little disruption as possible to “ the town’s traditional and spatial organization.”

Not much happened with the hotel zone until recently. Sporadic fighting disrupted the Siem Reap area as  late as 1998, while the Apsara Authority had no budget to speak of until 1999.

In the interim, however, a number of hotels and guest houses were built outside the zone, mostly along Route 6 near the airport west of town, extending east toward Roluos and north along the main road to Angkor Wat.

Tourism has risen steadily since the fighting stopped. So far this year, arrivals are up by a third, officials expect that to continue through year’s end, topping last year’s total of 264,708 for a new record of a bout 350,000 visitors.

Within five years, the number could grow to 1 million, Bun Narith said. Ultimately, planners say, as many as 1.5 million tourists a year could descend on Siem Reap.

Thong Khon, secretary of state for the Ministry of Tourism, said there are now about 2,000 rooms in hotels and guest houses. By 2003 Siem Reap is expected to need 3,000 rooms, he said.

Phase one of the zone, to be completed within three years, will include “seven or eight” high-end hotel and add more than 2,000 rooms, said Suy San, second deputy governor of Siem Reap.

PHNOM PENH

PG Cofirms Siem Reap Airways take-off

TTB Weekly, October 16-22, 00

By Yuphaporn Lertsattakit

Bangkok Airways has confirmed a 29 October launch date for Cambodia’s newest airline, Siem Reap Airways International. The new airline, which will begin operations with a daily Siem Reap – Phnom Penh flight, is fully owned by PG through its subsidiary company Siem Reap Airways, registered in Cambodia.

As first reported in early August by Travel Trade Report and Travel Weekly East, Siem Reap Airways will provide a daily connection between Cambodia’s two main gateways, Bangkok Airways flies daily form Bangkok to both points.

The new airline will compete with Cambodia national carrier Royal Air Cambodge on the Siem Reap-Phnom Penh route, using 70-seat ATR 72-200 aircraft. A one-way ticket will be priced at US$60, matching the same fare available on Royal Air Cambodge’s twice daily service.

Initially launching a domestic service, Siem Reap Airways plans to expand its network both domestically and regionally. “ At the start we will serve this domestic route before expanding to include other destinations in the region, using Siem Reap as our hub,” Said PG corporate communications senior director ML Nandhika Varavarn.

PG said the establishment of Siem Reap Airways would support and promote tourism in Cambodia in light of the open-skies policy established by Cambodia. ML Nandhika said Siem Reap Airways would also act to improve aviation training and skills in Cambodia.

Flight FT 999 will depart Siem Reap at 1440, arriving in Phnom Penh at 1520. Return flight FT 998 will leave the capital at 1600 to return to Siem Reap at 1640.

PG president and chief executive officer Prasert Prasartton-Osoth is due to front a press conference in Siem Reap on 3 November.

Shortly after Siem Reap Airways comes on the scene, yet another airline plans to take off next month. Joint Indonesian-Cambodian venture Royal Khmer Airlines wants to also begin flying the Phnom Penh-Siem Reap route with a daily flight, using Boeing 737 equipment. It will likely come in with a fare of around US$70.

Phnom Penh, 09 November 2024

With Best Wishes

Peter Lietz