Don’t tell the tourists

The news that Siem Reap International Airport has just opened a new terminal and runway capable of handling 1.5 million passengers per year seems to have gotten lost in the latest news cycle. According to the World Bank (here), the new additions are part of a larger, $23.9 million project to refurbish the airport.

Twenty-three point nine million is no small upgrade. And the Siem Reap airport is kind of important, too, serving as the country’s sole international gateway to Angkor Wat and all.

Consider this, written April 18:

Arrival in Siem Reap airport is a step back in time. Upon arrival over palm studded but otherwise mostly barren plains, aircraft are forced to turn around on the runway as there are no taxiways. Consistent with other smaller airports there are no jetways; they just park, swing the door open wide, throw down some stairs and set people off across a bubbling tarmac towards the terminal.

The terminal itself is one large open building with a door each for domestic and international arrivals – you must be careful not to choose the wrong one. The airport sees just a few arrivals in a day and so our arrival set about 40 otherwise immobile people into action. One could imagine the terminal floor plan being used for any number of things – a market, shoe warehouse, a manufacturing facility. In this instance, it houses the visa office (they are issued upon arrival), passport control (two booths and a fold up card table) and the baggage claim, a simple circular conveyor belt that pierces the wall in two places to drop luggage inside the building. That said, this “new” airport is a major leap forward for this small town and is one of the reasons the number of tourists has gone up.

Considering that Angkor Wat is Cambodia’s number one tourist destination, and that tourism is Cambodia’s number two source of foreign income, the state of affairs at the Kingdom’s most important airport is a real snafu.
But, as Oriental Compass luckily tells us, those days are now gone:

Siem Reap International Airport has moved into a new stage of its continued development program with a new international terminal and additional runway. These 2 new facilities has been completed and officially inaugurated on June 27 2006 by His Excellency Samdech Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia.

The floor space of the new terminal is 12,000 sqm and there are 18 check-in counters and 6 boarding gates which will significantly enhance the comfort level for all passengers.

What Oriental Compass doesn’t say is where it got that information. A cursory search in Google turns up nothing, nor does a search in Google news. According to the official airport web site, nothing at all has actually happened since December last year. Agence Khmer Press, usually pretty decent at documenting the Prime Minister’s appearances, stays mum too. Recent issues of The Daily or the Post? Nada.

So what’s with all the hush hush?