| Promoting Sustainable Tourism in Kep |
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Each year thousands of tourists flock to the towns of Kep and Kampot on the South coast of Cambodia. While most of them remain near the sea, only the occasional adventurous tourist ventures inland and wanders into Chamcar Bei village, where BABC has been supporting community development efforts since 2007. Acknowledging the potential of tourism to support the local economy, earlier this year BABC began working together with the Chamcar Bei community to put their village on the map as a destination for sustainable tourism.
An extensive participatory community mapping exercise conducted in September revealed that Chamcar Bei has numerous attractions for the intrepid traveller, including lush pepper and fruit plantations, local pagodas and markets, mountainbiking and trekking in the jungled hills and valleys of Phnom Voar, and a historical trail through one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge. During the past months, BABC has trained several local guides who will welcome tourists in the community liaison office, which also houses a shop selling handicrafts produced in Chamcar Bei. The community guides function as the contact persons for tourism by promoting the tours, receiving bookings and taking visitors on guided tours of the village and surrounding area.
This month the first community tour will kick off with a mountain bike trip through the village, a workshop making handicrafts with local artisans and lunch on the tranquil grounds of the Chamcar Bei Livelihoods Center. The tours will generate income for the local guides, the handicraft producer groups, and a community development fund managed by the Women’s Handicrafts and Development Association.
For more information of bookings please contact whada.office@gmail.com / whada@babcambodia.org.
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