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Dr. Thong Khon, Cambodia Minister of Tourism delivered a speech for the 11th Tour Guide Training in Phnom Penh City assessing the perspectives of Cambodian tourism as well as the importance of high qualified tour guides.
In its speech, Cambodia Tourism Minister Dr Thong Kong praised the tourism sector as a major driver in jobs’ creation, generating immediate benefits for a wide circle of local people. The UNWTO estimates that each job in the tourism sector is generating up to two jobs in other sectors. As tourism is a major factor of growth, Cambodia wants to focus increasingly on the quality of service, especially among young workers.
This is a crucial aspect of tourism development in Cambodia as the country is looking at welcoming more and more travellers. In 2011, ASEAN received approximately 79 million international tourists. In 2011, international tourists to Cambodia reached 2.88 million arrivals, an increase of 14% over 2010. Domestic tourism generated also some seven million trips (up by 3% over 2010) bringing national revenue of around US$ 1.91 billion (equivalent to 12% of GDP). Tourism helps creating some 350,000 direct jobs.
During the first four months of 2012, Cambodia received 1.27 million international tourists, an increase of 27.1%, compared to the same period in 2011. In 2012, the Minister expects that Cambodia will pass for the first time the three-million mark with projections looking at some 3.2 million international tourists.
In 2015, the year ASEAN will turn into a single economic market, the Association projects to receive around 107 million international tourists while Cambodia is targeting 4.5 million travellers. Looking further to the future, Dr Thong Khon estimates that total arrivals could reach seven million by 2020 generating US$ 5 billion in revenues and 800,000 employments in 2020.
In respond to the continuous development of tourism which will be leading to the establishment of ASEAN community in 2015, ASEAN has set out the ASEAN Tourism Strategic Plan 2011-2015. Improvement of human resource quality in tourism is one of the three priority strategic directions of this plan. The adopted plan agreed on a Mutual Recognition Arrangement on Tourism Professionals focused on 32 job titles based on Hotel Services and Travel Services divided into 6 divisions. In the future, the tourism professionals are able to mobilize to work in ASEAN countries.
In tour guide training course, trainees are required to study 27 subjects (360 hours), divided into 05 main parts, namely general knowledge, skill, legal knowledge, social knowledge and site visit. Future guides are also trained to protect and help managing natural resources, green space, cultural heritage, arts, and traditions. And to immediately lodge complaint or report to the Tourism Police, competent authority or tourism competencies in case of tourists acting illegally such as looting ancient heritage, drug trafficking, human trafficking and detention, minor abuse or prostitution.
According to the Minister, tour guide training is very important as it can respond to the current and future market trend. So far, the Ministry of Tourism has trained 4,561 tour guides for Siem Reap and Phnom Penh areas, in which there are 1,035 tour guides for Phnom Penh speaking various languages such as English, French, Chinese, Japanese, Spain, Italian, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Russian, etc…
To strengthen the quality of education and training on tourism professions, particularly tour guide and to enlarge the public-private cooperation, the Ministry of Tourism has allowed private schools and organizations to conduct tour guide training courses, such as the Paul Dubrule Hotel and Tourism School, created by the founder of ACCOR Hotels Group. Students cannot be eligible to become tour guides unless they apply for a license from the Ministry of Tourism which is valid for a two-year period.
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