Phnom Penh (VNA) - Cambodia launched a campaign titled "Cambodia: Safe and Green Tourism Destination" on January 27 in a bid to recover its pandemic-hit tourism industry, said Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon.

Speaking at the launching event held via video conference, Khon said over the past two years, many tourism businesses were shut down and tens of thousands of employees lost their jobs.

The campaign is a strategy to attract tourists from around the world and countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to Cambodia, he informed.

Fully-vaccinated tourists are welcome to Cambodia without quarantine, the official said.

Tourism is one of the four pillars supporting the Cambodian economy. The nation received up to 6.61 million international tourists in 2019, generating gross revenue of 4.92 billion USD, according to the tourism ministry. But due to COVID-19, the sector attracted just 163,366 foreign visitors in the first 11 months last year, down 87 percent over the same period in 2020.

In November 2021, Cambodia began welcoming fully-vaccinated travelers after most of its population had been vaccinated against the coronavirus. It has so far given at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to 14.34 million people, or 89.6 percent of its 16-million population, the health ministry said on the same day, adding that 13.74 million people, or 86 percent, have been fully vaccinated with two shots./.