Cambodia’s scuba diving industry to expand into the local market

Tourism making a big comeback in 2023 with some businesses shifting their focus to cater to domestic travellers past few pandemic years, while others found it difficult due to the nature of their services.

For instance, the scuba diving tour industry based in the coastal provinces and islands in Cambodia’s territorial waters is almost entirely reliant on foreign customers and dollars as the hobby has yet to take off in the Kingdom.

Veteran scuba diver Nhem Buthorng, operator of the Khmer Dive Group, said that a person must spend an average of $400 travelling to the islands to dive into the sea and swim among the coral reefs there. The reasons for all of the caution involved before allowing anyone to dive are well established. 

Also, there is also the remote but still possible chance of an encounter with a particularly dangerous animal, whether it’s a big shark or less frightening but even more dangerous creatures like incredibly poisonous jellyfish.

Khmer Dive Group provides scuba diving courses and organises trips to various islands for tourists to visit the amazing coral reefs. The company also works on supporting, researching and conserving biodiversity that has yet to be taxonomically identified by science because the ocean is big and we don’t know the whole contents of it by a long shot.