On January 29, the Briefing on Hainan International Tourism Island sponsored by 
the Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports of Hainan 
Province was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This is the first official 
promotional briefing of Hainan held in Cambodia. It witnessed the gathering of 
150 friends from China and Cambodia and their in-depth exchanges on adding 
cross-border flights and strengthening bilateral tourism, cultural, and trade 
cooperation.

On the briefing, the Department thoroughly introduced new tourism formats, 
products and tourism resources of Hainan in video, PPT, and other forms. In 
this process, attendees could enjoy Hainan songs, Khmer songs, and other 
artistic performance fully showing the charm of culture-tourism integration 
between Hainan and Cambodia. In addition, a Cambodian tourism expert was 
invited by the sponsor to share his story and feeling about Hainan with a 
prepared VCR, and received won warm response from the guests present.

Currently, there are four air routes between Hainan and Cambodia, including 
direct routes between Sanya and Phnom Penh and between Sanya and Siem Reap. On 
this briefing, representatives of both parties agreed that the cooperation 
between Hainan and Cambodia would have broad prospects and great potential. In 
the future, with additional air flights between Hainan and Cambodia provided, 
Hainan may develop more tourism products suitable for Cambodian tourists and 
increase the occupancy rate of the flights to encourage more Cambodian tourists 
to visit Hainan.

According to Zhou Anwei, chief planner of the Department, since the founding of 
Hainan Free Trade Zone, the central government has issued many favorable 
policies to promote the development of tourism and sports in Hainan, in a bid 
to make it a national sports tourism demonstration zone and an international 
tourism consumption center. In the future, Hainan will open its market wider to 
international tourists, and improve the tourism opening-up policies in hope of 
attracting more Cambodian enterprises to Hainan for cooperation and common 
development.

According to H.E. So Visothy, Under Secretary of State, Cambodia's Ministry of 
Tourism (MOT), about 1.9 million Chinese tourists visited Cambodia in 2018, a 
year-on-year increase of 72.6%. This briefing will make Cambodians have a 
deeper understanding of Hainan. The MOT will visit Hainan from March to April 
2019 to enhance this exchange.

Source: The Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports of 
Hainan Province