Travel website TripAdvisor has named Cambodia’s ancient wonder Angkor Wat as the top landmark in the world for the second year running in their Travelers’ Choice Award 2018, an achievement Cambodian tourism operators expect will attract more tourists to the Kingdom.

The website uses traveller reviews to choose its winner each year. Angkor Wat received a five-out-of-five ‘bubble rating’, with the majority of the more than 40,000 visitor reviews highly favourable.

Ho Vandy, secretary-general of the Cambodia National Tourism Alliance, on Wednesday welcomed Angkor Wat’s top ranking, adding that the temple complex has also received glowing reviews on many other tourism evaluation platforms.

‘The new award should bring a huge benefit for Cambodia’s Angkor Wat as the temple complex will get better known globally,’ he said. ‘I hope that the inflow of foreign tourists will keep increasing remarkably this year and beyond.’ Coming in second was the Plaza de Espana in Seville, Spain.

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center in Abu Dhabi came third. The only other Asian landmark to make the top 10 was India’s Taj Mahal, which ranked sixth.

From January to March this year, the Angkor Archaeological Park attracted 858,580 foreign tourists, a 12 percent increase over the same period in 2017, according to the state-owned Angkor Enterprise.

Revenue from ticket sales to foreign visitors reached $39.6 million in the first quarter of this year, up 28 percent from the same period last year.