Cambodia: When every euro spent by tourists becomes an engine for growth

Often, when travelling, a small detail can sum up a missed opportunity: refusing to make a purchase because you don't have the local currency or a suitable means of payment. This experience, repeated by millions of visitors to Asia-Pacific, represents much more than just individual frustration. It embodies a major economic challenge, particularly for booming tourist destinations such as Cambodia.

In 2024, Cambodia welcomed a record 6.7 million international visitors, far exceeding pre-pandemic figures and recording an increase of nearly 23% in one year. This confirms the crucial importance of this sector for the national economy, at a time when global trade uncertainties call for a focus on solid and sustainable growth drivers.

Capturing every transaction

But to maximise the economic impact of tourism, it is no longer enough to attract visitors. It is also necessary to be able to capture every transaction and every expense by eliminating friction at the point of payment. However, in many cases, small local merchants, often family-owned, remain excluded from the digital payment solutions used by travellers.

Technological developments are refocusing the issue: today, a simple connected smartphone can accept contactless payments via NFC, QR codes or payment links. This democratisation of tools drastically reduces acceptance costs for retailers, large hotel chains and small shops alike, and contributes to a more equitable distribution of tourism revenues in the local economy.

The Pay Local programme

Beyond accessibility, interoperability is the new challenge. While international credit cards have long facilitated payments abroad, the rise of e-wallets and QR codes has introduced systems that are often closed and incompatible, when they are not dependent on local ecosystems.

A pioneer in innovation in this field, Mastercard has launched the Pay Local programme in collaboration with the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), integrated into the Bakong Tourist App. This revolutionary system allows international tourists to link their Mastercard cards to local e-wallets, eliminating any technical or financial barriers for merchants. This makes payments as easy as using a familiar e-wallet, while tapping into a vast network of more than 3 million points of sale.

This smart integration, which requires no changes to existing infrastructure and no additional costs for merchants, opens up huge opportunities.

It extends access for SMEs and small businesses to the economic flow generated by tourism, while providing valuable data for public planning and targeted support for local stakeholders.

By modernising its payment system, Cambodia is not only reaping the benefits of tourism: it is creating the conditions for inclusive and sustainable growth, where every dollar spent by a traveller resonates within communities and fuels the country's economic boom.

In short, behind the simplicity of contactless payment lies a powerful lever for economic transformation, a digital bridge between tourists from around the world and Cambodia's commercial fabric. It is a compelling example of the impact of new technologies in the service of tourism that drives progress.