The number of international tourists visiting Cambodia plummeted by 47.8% in the first five months of 2026, with a local tourism executive blaming the decline on negative publicity around the proliferation of scam centers and the country’s ongoing conflict with neighboring Thailand.
According to data from the Ministry of Tourism, visitor numbers between January and May fell from 2.95 million last year to 1.54 million this time around. Arrivals from China did not fall by as much but were still down almost 20% to around 400,000.
The Phnom Penh Post cited from Khieu Thy, President of the Khmer Angkor Tour Guide Association, who pointed to the scam center and Thai conflict issues as being behind the lower visitation. Khieu also expressed doubt over the prospects of a new visa-free policy for Chinese tourists that came into effect earlier this month.
“Although the government has introduced a four-month visa exemption for Chinese tourists, I am not very optimistic that it will significantly increase the number of Chinese visitors this year,” he said.
The five-month decline in total visitors included a 25.9% fall in arrivals from Vietnam, 38.5% decline from Indonesia, 23.2% decline from Japan and a massive 59.9% decline from South Korea.
This follows the 16.9% drop in international arrivals in 2025 to 5.57 million.
Tourism minister Huot Hak has outlined three possible outcomes for 2026, the worst case seeing between 4.6 million and 4.8 million arrivals and the best case between 6.1 million and 6.3 million assuming the success of visa and other tourism policies, according to The Phnom Penh Post.
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