CAMBODIA’S high-end hotels have continued to suffer in recent months, managers said Tuesday, though some said they were optimistic of a pickup as the high season kicks in next month.

Sokha Beach Resort sales coordinator Vantaa In said his Sihanoukville hotel had seen occupancy rates of between 30 and 40 percent this autumn, a drop of about 10 percent on the same period last year during what is the low season.

“Our general manager … said business will suffer until October of next year,” he said.

Luxury hotels in Phnom Penh have suffered the same drop in occupancy, but representatives of the industry in the capital said they were more optimistic about the immediate future.

“We’re down to about 40 to 30 percent business,” Sorphorn Loeuk, sales manager at Hotel Cambodiana, said Tuesday. “It’s picking up a lot right now,” he said, adding “at the end of the month it will become busier”.

Cambodia’s main destination, Siem Reap, has suffered even more due to the global economic crisis, hotel managers said.

“Phnom Penh is better off than Siem Reap. People stay longer in Phnom Penh,” said Kham Serey Chantha of Pacific Hotel, which has branches in the capital and Siem Reap. “The number of Japanese guests is decreasing, and Europeans are not increasing. The Asian market is all that’s left.”

That means this high season will be worse than last year, said Greg Anderson, general manager of Le Meridien Angkor hotel in Siem Reap.

“The fourth quarter is not going to be the fourth quarter of 2008,” he said.

Besides the financial crisis, swine flu and the Thai border dispute had affected the sector, he added.