On December 26, Cambodia’s tourism marketing and promotion committee issued a notice explaining its cooperation with Trip.com Group. The notice said their previously signed agreement primarily concerned tourism-image and destination promotion, with a cooperation period from September 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026. It formed part of arrangements for the 2025 China–Cambodia Tourism Year, jointly designated by the two countries’ leaders in April 2025 to strengthen tourism exchanges and people-to-people travel.
The notice said that, in view of changes in external circumstances, the parties had agreed after consultation to defer promotional activities originally planned for Trip.com’s platforms until conditions were suitable. Addressing public concerns about tourist data security, the Cambodian side said that, in this and all previous cooperation, it had never obtained, used or shared tourists’ personal information and had carried out no data collection, storage or analysis.
Trip.com Group also issued a statement responding to the concerns. It said its marketing cooperation agreement with Cambodia’s national tourism organisation involved no data cooperation. The promotions had originally been intended to launch when policy conditions allowed, but were paused in advance following safety advisories and had not actually begun. Trip.com said there had been no breach of user privacy throughout the cooperation and that the agreement and its implementation had been submitted to the relevant authorities for examination. Both parties said they would proceed cautiously with further cooperation while safeguarding information security and users’ rights.
Compiled by this station.
