CAMBODIA: Cambodian Tourism To Accept Chinese Currency

Cambodia's Tourism Ministry has unveiled a policy to encourage the sector to accept renminbi, or yuan, as part of a drive to attract tourists from China, a local newspaper reported this week.
"This decision was made last month when the 'China Ready' white paper was released," Tith Chantha, a secretary of state at the ministry, was quoted as saying by the Khmer Daily.

"There will be no difficulty accepting Chinese yuan, it's the same as accepting the US dollar," he said. "Accepting renminbi could attract more Chinese tourists. It is also helpful for local enterprises, because they don't need to exchange currency any more."

If renminbi can be circulated, it will promote the development of Cambodia's tourism sector, he added.

The Ministry of Tourism earlier released a white paper titled "China Ready for Cambodia Tourism" outlining a five-year strategy for attracting Chinese tourists to the country with the aim of getting 2 million of them to visit per year by 2020.

China is the second-largest source of tourists to the country after Vietnam, according to a Cambodian tourism data.

In the first four months of this year, Cambodia recorded about 275,000 Chinese tourist arrivals, up by 13.6 per cent compared with the same period last year. In 2015, 694,712 tourists from China visited the country, and this was a 24-per-cent increase from 2014.

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation earlier predicted that China would become the largest outbound tourism market by 2020, with the number of tourists travelling abroad hitting 200 million

ZIMBABWE: Introduce Of Chinese Yuan To Boost Tourism In Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe has signed an agreement with China that will see the Chinese currency, the yuan, being used for public transactions in Zimbabwe.

According to the report, the use of the yuan will help the country to pay off its debt to China, which stands at $40 million. (R668 million).

Francis Ngwenya, President of the Zimbabwe Tourism Council, said that Chinese tourists would soon be able to pay for services in Zimbabwe using the yuan, however he added that it would take time to distribute the currency through the banks. No timeline for the introduction of the yuan has been set and tour operators and product owns in Zimbabwe contacted said they were unaware of the development.

Ngwenya said the introduction of the yuan would help to grow the Chinese market and that currency risk would subsequently be removed from the tourism packages to China.

“Zimbabwe is a multi-currency country and the introduction of the yuan will create easier pricing options and businesses will be able to have rand, dollar and yuan accounts.”

What are the implications of accepting the yuan for tourism operations? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.