Tourism sector has emerged as one of the most important service sectors in the global economy including Cambodia especially in recent 25 years, benefiting destinations and communities worldwide.
The objective of this chapter is to investigate and analyze the contribution of tourism sector in the economic development in Cambodia.
After the cessation of conflict and the start of establishing political stability in 1993, the tourism sector has started to be a significant and very dynamic engine of economic growth and generator of foreign exchange revenues in Cambodia. For this reason, this study covers the period after the early 1990s when Cambodia opened its door to the world.
In this study, the relationship between Cambodian tourism receipts and gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate is analyzed. Johansen co-integration test was performed to identify whether there was a long-term relationship between the variables. Then vector error correction mechanism (VECM) was used to identify the existence of short-run relationship between variables. Finally, residual tests were performed to check if the model is stable and desirable. E-views 8 statistical program is used for data analysis.
According to the results of the study, Johansen co-integration test verifies that GDP, tourism receipts, and export revenues have long-term association. The VEC Granger Causality/Block Exogeneity Wald Tests show that the causality from tourism receipts to GDP is statistically significant. And also this study shows that the tourism policies and the tourism revenues are more effective on the GDP than the export policies and the revenues.
