In the Khmer New Year 2008, many Cambodians along with a few foreign tourists visited Phnom Koulen resort. It was crowded, but happy. It is an attractive tourism destination which could create jobs and income for local residents, companies, government and other stakeholders. What is the interesting is that the government of Cambodia has contracted a private company to run business there through infrastructure development and annual fees paid for the government. Through this contract, the company has the right to get entrance fees from visitors.

In the Khmer New Year, I visited there. At the entrance gate, a company staff asked driver that how many people are there in your car? The driver said there is around 15 in my car. But actually due to my observation there were more than 15 people (around 20 people). And then the company staff issued 15 tickets for 15 visitors and 1 ticket for a car, which cost 40,000 Cambodian Riels. Thus, you can see that the number of entrant visitors is not accurate and the amount of entrance fee was less compared to the actual number of visitors in the car (more than 15 people).

That is one case. If you imagine for more cases, more cars, more tourists, you will see that the company does not put strict measures on the actual amount of number of visitors who are going to enter the Phnom Koulen resort site.