: Tourism Is Surging in the U.S. and Europe. But in Asia, Many Destinations Are Struggling to Come Back to Life #WorldNEWS Huoch Yen worked hard to become a tour guide at Cambodias famed Angkor Wat temples.

Tourism Is Surging in the U.S. and Europe. But in Asia, Many Destinations Are Struggling to Come Back to Life #WorldNEWS
Huoch Yen worked hard to become a tour guide at Cambodias famed Angkor Wat temples. It took the 43-year-old three attempts to pass a test for a license to guide Spanish-speaking tourists around Siem Reap, where the famous monuments are located—to say nothing of the years spent studying the language.
When the COVID-19 pandemic put the brakes on tourism in 2020, Yen decamped to his hometown in Kompong Cham province, a five hour drive away, where he now works as a teacher. But he still dreams of returning to his job as a guide.
I contact my friend who is living in Siem Reap to ask him about tourism every day, says Yen. He still tells me that its not going well. There are limited tourists right now—its not like before.
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Before coronavirus struck, Angkor Wat was one of the worlds most crowded tourist spots. Throngs of travelers from across the globe would arrive each day before dawn, jostling for a spot across a small pond from the main temple complex. There they would attempt to take photos of the sunrise in an atmosphere resembling a mosh pit.
These days, its very different. The Southeast Asian nation is hoping to notch a million international visitors this year—a big increase on the paltry number of visitors it welcomed in 2021, but a huge fall from the 7 million that visited in 2019.

Cindy Liu/Getty ImagesTourists take photos in front of a largely empty Angkor Wat temple on December 10, 2021 in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
As tourists elbow through the crowd to take selfies at Romes Trevi Fountain, or swarm the Strip in Las Vegas, many once crowded tourist spots in Asia-Pacific, like Angkor Wat, remain eerily quiet.
In June, the white sand beaches of Boracay—the most popular island in the Philippine archipelago—were largely free of foreigners. Earlier this month, tourist boat operators on Phi Phi—the Thai islands made world famous by Hollywood movie The Beach (2000)—were complaining that visitor numbers were not even half their pre-pandemic levels. In nearby Phuket, and in the Thai capital Bangkok, guides and drivers told TIME that they had had no income for over two years.
Read More: Can Barcelona Fix Its Love-Hate Relationship with Tourists?
A two-and-a-half hour flight away in Hong Kong, there are concerns that the iconic Star Ferry—once rated the worlds most exciting ferry ride”—could go bust for lack of passengers. Japan, which hosted more than 30 million tourists in 2019, welcomed just 1,500 leisure travelers between June and July—normally peak travel season. In April, dive instructors and hotel staff in Palau told TIME that tourists, which accounted for almost 50% of the pristine Pacific nations GDP before the pandemic, hadnt yet returned in meaningful numbers.

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