Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno has invited the governments of Laos and Cambodia through their respective tourism ministers to strengthen cooperation in developing cultural sites under the umbrella of the ASEAN single destination program. “We met with the new Cambodian Tourism Minister in order to increase opportunities for bilateral cooperation in terms of promotion, improving the quality of human resources, and also increasing interconnections between cultural sites,” the Minister said in a written statement received by Indonesia Window here on Friday.
Sandiaga on the sidelines of the 27th Meeting of ASEAN Tourism Ministers (M-ATM) in the series of ASEAN Tourism Forum 2024, explained that the two countries have cultural similarities that need to be developed and optimized to attract foreign tourists.
“Cambodia has Angkor Wat which is an extraordinary historical and cultural tourist destination similar to Borobudur in Indonesia. This is what we can strengthen cooperation with the destination similarity approach,” he said.
Indonesia and Cambodia have had diplomatic relations since 1957, both countries agreed to declare sister sites between Borobudur and Angkor Wat in January 2012 during the 2012 ASEAN Tourism Forum in Manado.
Indonesia and Cambodia also renewed tourism cooperation on January 18, 2022, some of the things that are cooperated include cooperation in tourism marketing promotion, tourism destination management, MICE cooperation, human resource development, and connectivity.
In addition to meeting with the Cambodian tourism minister, Sandiaga also met with the Lao Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism Suanesavanh Vignaket to discuss potential cooperation and human resource capacity building.
He also explained that the meeting with Laos also discussed flight connectivity between Indonesia, Cambodia, and Laos for visits to temple sites.
The meeting also discussed the development of halal food production training, to the exchange of information related to tour packages.