The Ministry of Tourism plans to launch a travel bubble allowing transit between Cambodia and 12 other regional countries in a bid to resuscitate the tourism sector amid crushing impact of the ongoing spread of Covid-19, Ministry of Tourism spokesman Top Sopheak told The Post on January 10.
He defined a “travel bubble” as a special travel package that aims to bridge movement between those countries that have “clear control of the coronavirus” and have had “no major outbreaks”.
“This is a strategic plan and a policy of the Ministry of Tourism – we are studying the possibility of forming a travel bubble with ASEAN countries, and those in ASEAN Plus Three, which also includes Japan, South Korea and China.
“And through the study, we’ve observed that we can do this. But at the moment, we can’t do anything yet. We are now working more closely with the Ministry of Health to streamline and clarify [the terms of the] travel bubble.
“We must prepare the procedures with the Ministry of Health, and we’ll have to do that carefully because once it’s all set in stone, we’ll have to sign memorandums of understanding with companies and travel agencies that delineate what kinds of aircraft tourists can arrive on, the names of [authorised] airlines, the hotels at which they can stay and [suggestions for] restaurants and tourism sites to visit,” Sopheak said.
The ASEAN Plus Three countries are Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/ministry-mulls-asean3-travel-bubble