Flights from Madrid land in Siem Reap

Is it a good sign for Cambodian tourism or for the ASEAN region for 2012? Are we moving forward or kicking backward? THREE BETTER NEWS below.

BIG NEWS: Cebu Pacific launches Manila-Siem Reap flights
Budget carrier Cebu Pacific launches its maiden flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia from Manila in a bid to further expand its Asia-Pacific network. On Thursday, April 19, Cebu Pacific aircraft takes off from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA-3) at 7:45 p.m. and will land in Siem Reap International Airport at 9:30 p.m.

The Gokongwei-led low-cost carrier will serve the route every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. The regular return flight departs Siem Reap at 10:30pm, arriving in Manila at 2:10am.

Lowest year-round fares for this route start at P3,499. Cebu Pacific set a promo one-way fare of P888 when it announced the new route last January.

Siem Reap is the gateway town for the famous World Heritage, Angkor Wat.

The number of tourists to Siem Reap soared further after the government liberalized its aviation policy and allowed foreign airlines to fly in the visitors. Siem Reap alone is visited by over 2.5 million tourists a year, more than double the tourists that go to Boracay, an idyllic island in central Philippines.

Cebu Pacific, one of the most aggressive no-frills airline in Asia, wants a piece of this tourism traffic. It also wants to be this route’s first entrant as the Philippine aviation market becomes more competitive with the entry of Malaysia-based AirAsia’s Philippine unit.



BIGGER NEWS: Flights from Madrid land in Siem Reap

Planes carrying more than 1,000 Spanish tourists landed in Siem Reap on Saturday, in what tourism officials called a positive signal from Europe during a time of economic instability. The tour that brought 1,290 tourist in on four chartered planes saw some of the first direct tourism-oriented flights from Madrid, Spain. It also brought some of the largest planes – three Airbus 330s and one Boing 767 – ever to land in Siem Reap.
“It’s the first time big planes land here. I hope it will attract more European tourists,” said Kong Sangvar, managing director of an agency that helped organise the trip. Although there are no plans for direct flights, the chartered flights have put tourism potential from Spain on some officials’ radars. “Permanent flights needs long-term research because it is based on passengers from Spain,” Tith Vanna, Siem Reap International Airport director, said. Ang Kim Eang, president of the Cambodian Association of Travel Agents, said the trip signifies that Europe was not a dead market for Cambodian tourism.



BUSIER NEWS: Tourists to Siem Reap up 48%

Siem Reap province, home to Angkor Wat, experienced a nearly 50 per cent year-on-year increase in tourists during the first three months of the year, according to official data.Foreign tourists visit the Bayon temple in Angkor National Park, Siem Reap province. Photo by AFP
Experts said more direct international flights had fuelled the jump, led by Korean and other regional tourists.
More than 1.1 million tourists visited the province between January and March, a 48 per cent increase compared with the same period in 2011, according to Siem Reap’s Tourism Department.