“The White Lotus is huge. It's a very scenery-driven show, and there are compelling stories behind that. It creates an aura.” As The White Lotus season 3 prepares to air, how is Thailand using various aspects of soft power to reposition itself as a tourism destination? This week's show comes from Gary's other podcast, High-Yield Tourism, on which he and Dr Jens Thraenhart speak to global thought leaders about how tourism strategy and development are changing in the post-Covid era. In this episode, Chattan Kunjara, Former Deputy Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, discusses how Thailand is promoting the 5Fs - food, fight (May Thai), fashion, film and festivals - in tourism as part of its national branding. Khun Chattan takes us behind the scenes of Thailand's reopening strategy and how, in his words, "Covid changed everything for Thai tourism." He also provides fascinating insights about the inner travel and tourism workings of South East Asia's most-visited nation.

The Lunar New Year travel period has begun! Chinese tourists are staggering their trips to South East Asia to avoid the Golden Week travel rush... So, following this trend, we've expedited our monthly round-up. This week, Gary and Hannah assess the Top 8 talking points from a very hectic January 2025 – perhaps even more frenetic than usual given the fairly early occurrence of the LNY. This month's top takeaways take us to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Laos, Myanmar… and more. Along the way, we discuss the Thai Prime Minister's AI video to assure Chinese tourists about safety, Bali buries its hotel development moratorium, the Visit 2026 campaign experiences hiccups in Malaysia, and there's an unexpected move in Laos as it revokes visa waivers. Plus, we touch on an intriguing budget win by the Secretary of Tourism  in the Philippines, and we celebrate the first same-sex marriage ceremonies in Thailand. 

Wherever you find yourself in South East Asia, it’s impossible to miss that travel infrastructure is being built out on a vast scale – and 2025 is an important year for some major projects. This week, Gary chats with James Clark, Founder of the Future South East Asia newsletter, to assess the Top 8 Mega-Projects under-development across the region. In order, we discuss these transformative airport and high-speed rail projects in 1) Vietnam, 2) Singapore, 3) Cambodia, 4) Indonesia, 5) The Philippines, 6) Malaysia, 7) Back to Vietnam, and 8) Thailand. We analyse the potential impact on travel and tourism, plus the economics and politics, and the financing, planning and construction challenges, behind each one. With South East Asia at the centre of Asia Pacific's ambitious economic growth trajectory, these mega-projects will carve out new contexts for domestic and international travel. 

Happy New Year to all our listeners, and welcome to the start of the 6th year of The South East Asia Travel Show. In 2024, for the first time, our show was downloaded in more than 100 countries (actually, 113) - and as this is the time of year for forecasting, we’re aiming for 120 in 2025. To kick off the year, Gary and Hannah have put together a list of 15 hot travel and tourism topics to watch out for over the next 12 months. No spoilers, but the journey takes us to Thailand, Malaysia (East & West), Singapore, Vietnam, The Philippines and Myanmar, plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Nepal... and mentions for the EU and BRICS. We wrap up by each selecting our 2025 Tourism Word of the Year.

Visa-Free Travel Between South East Asia & China. Tourism Taxes. The Politics of Taylornomics. ASEAN's Most Expansive High-Speed Rail System. Singapore Vision 2040. And, The Quest For Post-Covid Recovery Continues. 

It's time for our annual 2024 review. As we complete the 2nd full calendar year of travel and tourism in SEA since the pandemic – it's been a highly eventful 12 months. This week, Gary and Hannah discuss the Top 10 travel and tourism talking points in South East Asia in 2024 - and their implications for 2025… and beyond. Amid discussions about tourism politics and economics, national branding and soft power, demographics, technology and strategy development, we end the show with the region's most positively uplifting societal story of the year. Hats off to… Thailand!

"There are a lot of unknowns and hints of nervousness about 2025." With ASEAN nations weighing up their travel outlooks for the Year of the Snake, November was an eventful month. This week, Gary and Hannah, rewind the month’s top travel takeaways featuring Laos, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, plus investment updates from China - and we round up the region's latest travel stats. We tackle the fallout from the fatal backpacker poisonings in Laos, "unsatisfactory tourism performance" in Singapore and the latest on the new North Bali Airport. We delve into Chinese aircraft manufacturer COMAC's latest plays to get ASEAN airlines to buy its planes, and an eye-catching collaboration in Hong Kong. Plus, Etihad announces 5 new route services in South East Asia and Penang opens its airport gates to Chennai. And which destination is hoping charter flights from Poland will help meet its 2024 visitor arrivals target?

As South East Asian nations complete a second uninterrupted year of tourism since reopening, 2025 is viewed as a time to push on from recovery to growth. But staying in the here and now, Gary and Hannah travel around ASEAN to rewind the top talking points from October. Stopovers include Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos… plus India and wintertime China. En route, we reflect on the highlights from ITB Asia in Singapore, place the media hype about self-drive travel between Malaysia and Thailand in context, and discuss the priority issues on the desk of Indonesia's new tourism minister. We also assess the implications of a TV report in South Korea about alleged scam centres in Cambodia that is causing consternation for Korean visitors. Plus, Vietnamese travellers are booking trips to icy northern China, flying taxis are back in the news and we look back on one year of Whoosh, South East Asia's only high-speed railway which celebrated its birthday in Indonesia.

Asia is Back! After playing catch-up since 2022, Asia is once again central to conversations about the future of global tourism. We are in the middle of the Fall conference season, and Asian travel themes are taking centre stage. And the content and tone has changed notably since 2019. So, this week, Gary and Hannah - who are speaking at and attending various events across Asia and beyond - run down this season's Top 10 Travel & Tourism Conference Topics. In a packed show, we discuss the shifting influences of  Gen Zs, Indigenous Tourism, Blended Travel, Superapps, Overtourism, AI, Muslim Tourism, China & India and the dynamic definition of Experiences. 

China's October National Day public holiday is the third 'Golden Week' of the year. In 2024, it just wrapped up amid a global sense that Chinese outbound tourism is definitively back. Twenty-one months after China reopened for travel, destinations across South East Asia, Asia Pacific and worldwide enjoyed their most optimistic Golden Week since the corresponding period way back in 2019. To discuss the top takeaways, Gary is joined by Sienna Parulis-Cook, Director of Marketing & Communications for Dragon Trail international. In a broad-ranging discussion, we dissect various key issues, ranging from visa-free travel to events and festivals, and data from the top OTAs and niche booking platforms to the two most-visited destinations, Hong Kong and Macau. Intriguing Golden Week hotspots under discussion also include Georgia, Italy, Turkey, Japan and Malaysia, and we track the shifts in Chinese traveller sentiment from Dragon Trail's new survey. Plus, we chart the ongoing rise of red-hot travel and lifestyle app Xiaohongshu, and place our cards on the table about the Chinese travel trends to watch out for in 2025.

This week, China's October Golden Week kickstarts Q4 of 2024 and the path toward South East Asia completing a 5-year Covid cycle. So, it's the perfect time to assess the top 8 talking points from the 9th month of the year. We begin in Thailand with the issues around the proposed introduction of Electronic Travel Authorisation, while Royal Assent for the Marriage Equality Bill makes it the third Asian jurisdiction to legalise same-sex unions. Elsewhere, AirAsia grabbed headlines throughout September and Singapore scored another F1 win. Plus, a new VAT refund scheme for tourists in the Philippines and a possible hotel construction moratorium in Bali. And finally, a Singaporean university is attempting to balance the inconveniences and benefits of a surge in tourist visitors. 

"How do you know your tourism activity's overall impact is beneficial to a community if you aren't measuring it?" This week, Gary and Hannah discuss economic leakages and quantifying the impacts on local communities of tour operations with Ewan Cluckie, Founder of Thailand-based Tripseed. Socio-economic sustainability in tourism is an under-scrutinised topic, but Tripseed is confronting it head-on. The company recently published phase 1 of its deeply researched Economic Distribution Disclosure Initiative, a set of tools and metrics designed to "drive transparency and positive impact within the local economy”. Ewan discusses why economic leakage is "particularly pronounced" in Thailand, and research related to other ASEAN countries. So, what are these leakages, how do you measure and compare them - and where does the money go? And, how can leakages be assessed for suppliers further along the chain, whose data might be tricky to obtain? Ewan also provides a heads-up about the areas that this innovative tourism impact project in South East Asia will address next - and the interest it has garnered from university research institutes and large private sector organisations.