Tourism sector ‘needs 200K new workers’
A Ministry of Tourism official announced on October 11 that the country would need an additional 200,000 trained tourism professionals if it was to fulfil its target of receiving 7 million international tourists a year by 2020. Try Chhiv, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Tourism, said the assessment of the industry’s needs was announced at a workshop held at the headquarters for the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia. “In order to respond to the projections of 7 million international tourists in 2020, the ministry believes that the sector needs 200,000 more professionals,” he said. “Currently, we still have a shortage of skilled labour and resources related to tourism.” Presently there are 620,000 Cambodians working in the tourism sector who facilitated the 4.8 million international arrivals last year, according to Chhiv. “If we had between 800,000 to 1 million Cambodians trained in hospitality, we would be able to handle future growth,” he said.
