Siem Reap, reinventing the arteries of Angkor

Thanks to massive reconstruction efforts, wide roads
 and sidewalks now line the Siem Reap River
 near the town center. (Photo by Tom Vater)

For nearly 20 years, the magnificent Angkor monuments in western Cambodia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, have been a magnet for millions of international travelers. As the tourists poured in, Siem Reap, the town closest to the 1,000-year-old temples, grew haphazardly from a few blocks of French colonial buildings to an urban sprawl of hotels, restaurants, bars, shopping arcades and markets.

With the arrival of COVID-19 and a two-year closure of international airspace, the tourists vanished, hotels, shops and bars closed, and Siem Reap turned into a ghost town. In 2019, 1.6 million people arrived by air. That fell to 240,000 in 2020, and to just 108,000 in 2021. In the first quarter of last year only 4,482 people visited the Angkor ruins, down 99% from the comparable period of 2020.

The Cambodian government has used the collapse of tourism to remake the city of 250,000 inhabitants. In November 2020, the Ministry of Public Works initiated the 38 Road Project, with a budget of $150 million, to repave almost 110 km of tarmac and create a modern drainage and sewage system, along with proper pavements and new traffic lights.

"All the roads were dug up simultaneously and when the wet season came into the picture, it was like a war zone," says Nick Ray, a film producer, writer and author of the Lonely Planet guide to Cambodia. "But the government stepped up the pace and by December last year, the roads were completed."

The result is impressive. Siem Reap is cleaner, the roads are wider, there are roundabouts, bicycle lanes and wide footpaths. The tree-lined Siem Reap River, which meanders through town, long clogged with garbage, has been restored to its former glory.

The tourists have not yet returned. The popular, once-thriving night market in the town center remains shuttered, as do many hotels, bars and restaurants. But the town is getting ready for a resumption of the travel trade: Symbolically, the Raffles Grand d'Angkor, Siem Reap's oldest and most elegant hotel, reopened for its 90th anniversary in June, following a 26-month pandemic-induced closure and a complete restoration.

This is not the first time that Siem Reap's grand old dame has seen off an existential crisis. Thanks to the vagaries of Cambodian history, the vast, historic establishment, which has played host to Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Kennedy and the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, has had to cease operations before, not least when it was plundered by communist Khmer Rouge soldiers in the 1970s, who used the furniture for firewood.

General manager Dennis De Groot positions the Grand d'Angkor right at the start of a new era in tourism. "We're the big boat of Siem Reap," he says. "We open to say we are ready. Siem Reap is ready. People should come back. Now is the best time to see the temples as they are still very quiet."

With the crowds yet to return, a few intrepid visitors have some of the monuments all to themselves. The view from the top of Angkor Wat across the surrounding jungle canopy, uninterrupted by selfie sticks, the smell of sun oil and flag-following package explorers, is as ethereal as it must have been 90 years ago, when the first well-heeled French visitors set off for the temples by elephant from the Grand d'Angkor.

De Groot sees the end of global travel restrictions as an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and make Siem Reap a better experience for visitors. "Pre-COVID, Siem Reap was in decline," he says. "This had a lot to do with the roads and infrastructure. So it's great to see what the ministry has done."

For now, though, the new roads are largely empty and there is just a trickle of visitors. And for both large and small businesses, restarting operations and rehiring staff is tricky.

Akim Ly runs Adventures Cambodia, which has 48 employees and offers a variety of scooter and jeep tours, including temple visits, food tours and trips into the countryside around Siem Reap.

"During COVID, we rented our jeeps to local tourists. I tried to find other jobs for my staff," says Ly, who restarted her tours in January 2022 after a hiatus of almost two years. "Bookings look good for August and then from October to the end of the year. Of course, we have less bookings than in 2019, but I am happy the market is moving again," she says.

De Groot confirms an uptick in bookings toward the end of the year, "Bookings for the coming high season run up to 60% of 2019 levels. And guests tend to book longer stays as there are fewer flights."

But challenges abound. The hotels that have reopened are finding it hard to employ enough trained staff after two years of layoffs. Even an institution as prestigious as the Grand d'Angkor hotel is keenly aware of the problems.

"Ninety-five percent of our staff came back, but skills and proficiency have worn off and we have to train people how to serve coffee again," De Groot says. "We have to create new confidence in our staff so they can rise to coming challenges. We need to be on top form to create memorable, unique journeys for visitors to Angkor. The chandeliers alone won't do it."

Ly, who is a board member of the Cambodia Tourism Association, is helping to organize a refresher training project for skills development in the hospitality industry, supervised by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. "There's huge interest," she says. "More than 1,000 people ... signed up for the August workshop."

The Cambodian government, like governments of neighboring countries, has declared that it wants to attract wealthier tourists, in part thanks to a realization that quantity does not always mean quality in the travel industry and that 7,000 daily visitors to the Angkor ruins -- the level reached before the pandemic -- may have been too many.

Local businesses agree that the return of huge tour groups is not desirable. Christian de Boer, the general manager of Jaya House, a boutique hotel on the banks of the Siem Reap River, has long been interested in changing the way people visit the town, co-founding a 2016 initiative to equip tourists with metal bottles for repeated use to curtail the use of throwaway plastic. RefillNotLandfill has since spread to 19 countries.

"The whole industry will improve if there are fewer visitors," de Boer says, "And businesses that can deliver a sincere, personalized and honest experience will survive. In my opinion, that's most likely the smaller properties first. Tourism won't return to pre-COVID levels until November 2024 or later."

De Boer says some travelers are becoming more aware of their impact on the destinations they visit. "It started with the bottles. Nowadays, many of my guests prefer to cycle to see the temples, instead of renting a car or tuk-tuk."

Travelers can now explore the Angkor ruins on new bicycle lanes, either on mountain or e-bikes, avoiding the busy road network in the Angkor Archaeological Park.

There is much talk about changing Siem Reap from a once-in-a-lifetime destination to a city that travelers will want to return again and again. New attractions, including an elephant sanctuary (for pachyderms permanently retired from carrying tourists, a practice outlawed in 2019), a botanical garden, a wakeboard park and an aquarium have opened or are about to.

New resorts are also popping up outside the town, particularly in the Banteay Srei area, giving visitors an opportunity to enjoy Siem Reap province's bucolic countryside. As a consequence, far-flung temples such as Beng Melea and Koh Ker may become more popular.

That said, a new airport located some 40 km from the monuments, with a 3,600-meter runway capable of handling large intercontinental aircraft, is 20% complete and due to open in 2024. That may contribute to a resumption of tourism by large groups.

Ray says there are ongoing discussions about changing the ticketing policies for the Angkor Archaeological Park, adding that the current model tends to funnel people through three large temples -- Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm.

"That's how the big tour groups explored the temples, usually in a single day," says Ray. "This model concentrates visitor numbers and creates chokepoints. But it also limits visitors' spending and length of stay. We're discussing setting up different categories for temples. For example, Category A would be the main temples and visitors would only be allowed to visit one of these per day. If people wanted to see the big three temples, they would have to stay for three days. That would really benefit the local community."

Siem Reap's face-lift is all about tourism and gives the impression that the new city has been built around and not for its inhabitants, despite the installation of 200 security cameras, 20 traffic lights and 5,300 streetlights and the planning of 3,125 trees. The government pledged to connect 10,000 households to the sewage system, but only 50% of households were connected in January, according to the latest available figures.

"Of course, many current tenants have no idea what their plot sizes were in 1993. There's also been a lack of coordination between the different construction companies involved in the 38 Road Project. Sometimes sewage pipes met at junctions but had been put into the ground at different levels. That was quite hard to resolve. Finally, the authorities may have run out of budget, which is unfair to residents and favors the tourists. It's too early to tell. The project is not quite finished yet."

The return of mass tourism may also be inhibited by a post-COVID shortage of flights to Cambodia. "Suitcases are packed, people are ready to travel, but the carriers cannot meet the demand," says De Groot. "In fact, airlines are OK with people not traveling. They just raise the ticket prices."

(Photos by Tom Vater)

Ray agrees. "Cambodia is very reliant on its neighbors to bring in visitors," he says. "Particularly, Vietnam and Thailand have been slow to reestablish connections. What we're seeing now is surge pricing. Airlines are trying to make up for two years of lost business by charging huge amounts of money. In July, we're looking at $2,000 for a return flight from Europe. For most European families, ticket prices are off-limits at the moment."

Despite the continuing pandemic fallout, however, some local businesses remain optimistic.

"Siem Reap will boom again," says Ly, "and all sorts of people will come, not just high-end tourists. We just have to be patient. It will take time."

*Source: NIKKEI ASAI, by TOM VATER