Cambodia urged to build bureau

By Mark Bode BANGKOK A leading Southeast Asian travel industry figure has urged Cambodia to follow the lead of other countries in the region by setting up a convention and incentive bureau. Richard Brouwer, vice-president sales and marketing for Diethelm Travel Asia, made the call after Cambodia named a new tourism minister following the long-awaited formation of a new government in July. Lay Pra Has has replaced Veng Sereyvuth as the country's new tourism minister. "In time they will discover that conferences, exhibitions and incentives (CEI) and leisure are not the same, so they will probably set up a sub-division handling CEI,'' Brouwer said. "For them, it's a real learning process, which we have seen in countries like Thailand. They can hopefully benefit from what Thailand has done, so they can go a couple of steps quicker.'' With the Cambodian government now in place following the deadlock which came after the elections in July last year, Bangkok-based Brouwer is now optimistic that the country's outstanding infrastructure projects like the convention centre can move ahead. "I think it's a very good thing for the industry that Cambodia has a new tourism minister in place,'' he said. "But we should not forget that he (the new minister) has to learn as well.''