Tourism yield measures for Cambodia

Abstract

This paper develops new measures of tourism yield in the context of Cambodia, a developing country in South East Asia. It first sets out some data regarding tourism in Cambodia and the reasons for tourism being identified as a tool for economic development and poverty alleviation. It then sets out the method and findings of a study by the International Finance Corporation-Mekong Private Sector Development Facility to develop standard and extended measures of tourism yield to assess the pro-poor impact of international tourism in Cambodia. These yield measures extend earlier work undertaken by the first author. It then discusses the policy implications of the findings. It is concluded that while tourism goes some way in reducing poverty in Cambodia, informed policy initiatives can enhance the effect. It is argued that different visitor yield measures provide an important basis for the development of strategies to increase tourism's pro-poor impact. A substantial barrier to the formulation of appropriate policies to increase the pro-poor benefits of Cambodia arises from the limited data available in poor countries generally.

Keywords:

• tourism yield
• Cambodia
• poverty alleviation
• destination management

Acknowledgements

For further information regarding the Cambodia Tourism Impact Studies conducted by the IFC-MPDF in 2007, please contact Kate Lloyd-Williams ([email protected]) or Dr Frederic Thomas ([email protected]). The following people also made very significant contributions to the planning, gathering and/or analysis of data (in alphabetical order): Sharee Bauld, Thy Hourn, John Marsh, Brett Morgan, Men Prachvuthy, Allison Rossetto, Sour Sakara, Rupal Shah, Nigel Smith and Kang Vannak. The authors thank Dr Tim Conway, Dr Jonathan Mitchell, Pamela Muckosy and Dr Jim MacBeth for technical advice and peer reviews.