How’s Business in Cambodia? Exclusive Video Interview with Richard Dusome, MD of Dara Hotels

(26 Aug 2021)
Despite COVID19, the Kingdom of Cambodia has had many
reasons to celebrate in the past 12 months.

In December, the country extracted its first drop
of crude oil, and then in June its first commercial gold mining
operation got underway in Mondulkiri province with aims of
producing 3 tonnes of gold ore per year.

Construction of a brand new 60,000-seat national
stadium in Phnom Penh was recently completed, and plenty of other
projects to improve the country’s infrastructure and accessibility
are currently underway, with many nearing completion.

Cambodia was also the first country in ASEAN to
receive COVID19 vaccines through the COVAX scheme, and has one of
the most impressive vaccination rates in the region having already vaccinated 88.35% of the targeted 10 million people aged 18 years
and above, 62.87% of the targeted under-18s population of
1,966,931, and 62.95% of the overall population of 16 million
people (as of 25 August 2021).

To learn more about the projects and how COVID19
has impacted the hotel and tourism industry in Cambodia, Steven
Howard of TravelNewsAsia.com spoke with Richard Dusome, Managing
Director of Dara Hotels, over Skype on 25 August 2021.

In this latest discussion, which follows

their in person interview at the Cambodia Travel
Mart in 2019, Richard tells us more about some of the
important tourism-related infrastructure developments in Cambodia, how Dara Hotels has been impacted by the pandemic, whether the company
has used the downtime to invest in properties, what the
pipeline is like now, and what plans the company
has for the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2022 which is currently scheduled
to take place in Sihanoukville in January.

You will also discover how the country is
looking to develop its domestic tourism industry, some of the
challenges it faces in doing so, and which areas of the country
Richard feels have the most potential for growth.

Richard also shares his thoughts on expanding the
aviation sector in the country, which markets he would like to see
airlines target, and how he believes COVID19 has changed leisure
travel. All that and much, much more in the video and podcast
below.

How’s Business in Cambodia –
Interview with Richard Dusome, MD of Dara Hotels

PODCAST

Editor’s note:
As the above video interview was conducted over the internet, I
would like to apologise that the audio and visual quality are not
up to the same HD/UHD quality that it normally would be. Hopefully it won’t be too
long until we are once again conducting exclusive video interviews
in person, but for now we have to make do with what we have. Thank
you.

See also:

How’s Business in Cambodia? Exclusive Interview with MD of Dara
Hotels, Richard Dusome (October 2019).

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