Khmer celebrity singer and actor Sai is heading a campaign titled “We Love Siem Reap” to promote local tourism and to help recover from the pandemic after-effects.

Sai, who has also bought a house in Siem Reap, says he supports the campaign because he too has learned to love Siem Reap and says the campaign is also connected to his move to Siem Reap.

“In the past, I only knew the city as a historical place full of temples, but now I know Siem Reap is more than that,” he says. “Siem Reap is even more advanced than Phnom Penh in some respects, such as in the hospitality sector. It also has more greenery than Phnom Penh and quiet areas that made me fall in love with the place. On the weekend, I can go biking peacefully and enjoy looking at the tree-lined roads.”

The campaign, titled “We Love Siem Reap” is billed as a “community-building initiative” by Phnom Penh-headquartered real estate and lifestyle development firm Urban Living Solutions (ULS), which has two property projects in Siem Reap –Rose Apple Square and Bakong Village.

The campaign, backed by posters, pins and wristbands, is centered on an Instagram photo contest that runs until May 31 and promises $4,000 in gift cards as prizes.

This is not the first contest that Urban Living Solutions (ULS) has run in Siem Reap – in 2017 it ran an architectural competition to “reinvent the shophouse” in the build-up to the launch of its Bakong Village housing development.

But this time around the aim is not to market the company or its products, but to promote Siem Reap tourism by targeting potential international tourists considering a big trip this year but are undecided about where to go, according to brand strategist Jobel “James” Tombado.

“We decided on an Instagram photo contest as that is where many people browse for travel ideas, and we hope to ‘plant’ the idea of Cambodia through travel photos of their friends.

“The photo contest has six categories with their own hashtags to help us encourage our photographers to look for the lesser-known offerings of Siem Reap, from food, to faces to the daily life of the town.

“We understand that international visitors remain the foundation of the tourism industry and to reach these audiences we are largely relying on social media ads in target languages – French, Japanese, Korean, and Thai,” she says.

The campaign also has staff in Siem Reap working with hospitality and tourism businesses and to help the local push, the company enlisted singer and actor Sai as the campaign ambassador.

“We’ve worked with him before and have a lot of respect for his fundraising runs,” Jobel says, referring to charity runs Sai has undertaken, including a 97-day, 2,400-plus kilometers run across Cambodia in January 2021 raising $470,000 for the Angkor Hospital for Children.

And so far the Love Siem Reap campaign is working.

“Siem Reap locals have been very receptive to the campaign. All over the city, many establishments are displaying our posters and campaign merchandise. And as of today, there are over 1000 posts on Instagram with the hashtags #welovesiemreap,” says Jobel.