PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA, March 11, 2002: A massive tourism invasion threatens to overwhelm Cambodia’s legendary Angkor Wat temples. With an airport upgrading master plan, conservationists predict that the Unesco World Heritage site will be ill-prepared for the millions of visitors expected to arrive in the next five years. Tourism has seen a dramatic take-off since 1997 when Prime Minister Hun Sen permitted airlines to fly direct to Siem Reap, bypassing the capital Phnom Penh. Direct flights from Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, China and Vietnam brought 353,981 passengers to Siem Reap in 2001, a 50-per-cent rise over the previous year. Deputy Tourism Minister Dr. Thong Khon said Siem Reap had many problems. He said that the picturesque river that flows through the city centre is strewn with garbage, only a few toilets exist around the temples, and many new hotels lack proper sewage treatment. Apsara, the Cambodian authority responsible for the conservation of Angkor’s 12th-century antiquities and heritage, has worked with Unesco to set up a series of regulations and restrictions to safeguard the temples. To prevent tourist traffic jams developing around the temples, it will restrict the number of tourists visiting a temple to 300 at a time. Sightseeing will be limited to one to two hours beginning 2003.
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