On July 1, the Ministry of Tourism announced the launch and opening meeting of the Cambodia Tourism Marketing and Promotion Board (CTB), the Kingdom’s new platform for systematically integrating private sector feedback into government policy. The Board consists of fifteen representatives appointed by Prime Minister Hun Manet at the end of June — eight from the government and seven from private sector institutions, including the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, Air Asia Cambodia, and the Cambodia Tourism Federation. It is chaired by Tourism Minister Sok Soken.
The CTB is a transformed version of the previous Tourism Marketing and Promotion Board (TMPB), which created a forum for regular collaboration between the tourism and foreign ministries, the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA), the national carrier (Cambodia Angkor Air), and two travel associations. Through the expansion of stakeholders on the new board, the Manet government hopes to facilitate more holistic cooperation in financial, technical, and conceptual areas to realize its vision of Cambodia as a leading tourism destination. Although international arrivals to the Kingdom have rebounded post-pandemic, they remain short of the 2019 record of 6.61 million arrivals. With the government aiming to reach 6 million arrivals by the end of 2024 and surpass their previous record by 2025, the CTB is hoped to play a leading role in shoring up the country’s tourism marketing strategy and otherwise acting on the Prime Minister’s growth goals for the industry under the “BUILD Plus 3Ds” plan.
