The Minister of Tourism, Veng Sereyvuth said villagers around the Hindu-inspired temples would be 'educated' to understand' to understand the need for conservation and about tourism.

"They will not be forced to move from the Angkor area, but we will educate them about tourism and through their better understanding villagers will actively participate in activities," Sereyvuth told an international conference on cultural tourism here last week.

Other measures to protect the ancient temples, the symbol of Cambodia, include moving the airport to site 45-km north of the city. This is to prevent vibration from low-flying jets to damage the temples weakened by age and pilferage by artifact thieves.

The government has already prohibited high-rise buildings in the area. The conference, the first major gathering of captains in the hospitality industry in the kingdom, was organized by the ministry and the Madrid-based World Tourist Organization.

A WTO consultant, Narzatina Lim Told the conference that protecting local culture was crucial from a tourism perspective, as forces of globalization and development stripped Asian cities of heritage. She said tourists, jaded by cities without character, were looking for remote places, intruding into local lives.

This, Lim added, planers would have to incorporate the community into tourism development and ensure they benefited by tourist-dollars.

The Prime Minster, Hun Sen opening the talks predicated that visitor arrivals will grow by five-fold to an annual million in the next few years, crediting his open sky policy for the growth.

There was a 231.3% increase in arrivals by air in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period last year. Angkor welcomed 247,234 visitors in all, with 57.59% flying in, 26.12% coming by road and 16.29% by boat.

The figure is also 57.13% of all arrivals in Cambodia of 343,519. The 131,988 foreign visitors to Siem Reap could have contributed at least US$5. 27 million into the economy, each of them visited the temples on three-day passes.

Currently five international airlines connected Siem Reap with regional points and the number is expected to double net year.