The South East Asia Travel Show

30 Oct 2025 • 26m28s

Ep 272: Scam Centre Tourism Impacts, SAF Mandates, Q4 Travel Promotions & Timor Leste Joins ASEAN: October 2025 in Review

After a quiet September, October travel activity was stimulated by various national holidays (including Golden Week in China, Chuseok in South Korea, Diwali/Deepavali in India, Malaysia & Singapore and Undas in the Philippines). These created air travel spikes that set the scene for the region’s highly anticipated end-of-year peak season, with destinations making promotional plays to attract each other’s holidaymakers. We begin by looking at the accession of Timor Leste to ASEAN and the prospects of a peace settlement between Thailand and Cambodia.

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10 Oct 2025 • 34m24s

Ep 271: Chinese Holidaymakers Jet Off, Multiple Muslim Tourism Initiatives & Fiscal Relief for Travel Workers: September + Golden Week in Review

After three weeks in Japan, Singapore and Italy, Gary and Hannah are back in KL to recap the top travel talking points from September and early October. China’s Mid-Autumn Golden Week has just wrapped up, so we assess the current state of play in a diversifying Chinese outbound market. Elsewhere, we discuss a raft of new Muslim-friendly tourism initiatives being introduced across South East Asia, note a shift towards waterborne transport innovation and crunch the numbers of a tax relief scheme for travel industry workers in Indonesia.

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25 Sep 2025 • 32m29s

Ep 270: From Japan to South East Asia to South America: Confronting the Cumulative Challenges of Tourism, with Joao Romao

Economic and social processes shape tourism development, but - in turn - tourism reshapes economic spaces, and that is creating new challenges in South East Asia and beyond. This week, Gary welcomes Joao Romao, Associate Professor at Yasuda Women’s University in Japan, to discuss his new book, Economic Geography of Tourism. An economist, tourism strategy advisor and former travel documentary maker, Joao assesses contemporary tourism through a lens of shifting global economic, technological, societal, environmental and political challenges.

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19 Sep 2025 • 25m07s

Ep 269: ASEAN & APAC Still Playing Air Travel Catch-up, Bali Floods Fallout & Koh Samui’s Mega-Bridge: This Week in Review

As we speed towards the 4th quarter of 2025, some economic metrics in South East Asia are trending towards nervousness. Air travel capacity is a primary case study, where the year-on-year data is mostly positive (look away now, Indonesia), but the ASEAN and APAC regions (overall) are still playing catching from 2019… all those pre-Covid years ago. Plus, on our weekly travel news roundup, Gary and Hannah journey across ASEAN to discuss the top talking points in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines and Timor Leste.

The Travel Industry Podcast for ASEAN and Asia Pacific...

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Ep 273: Singapore Leads on SAF, Cambodia Visitor Numbers Dive & A Bahrain Base for AirAsia?: The Latest South East Asia Travel News in Review

About The Podcast

August 2022: In Review

July 2022: In Review

📻 Recent Episodes

Ep 272: Scam Centre Tourism Impacts, SAF Mandates, Q4 Travel Promotions & Timor Leste Joins ASEAN: October 2025 in Review

Ep 271: Chinese Holidaymakers Jet Off, Multiple Muslim Tourism Initiatives & Fiscal Relief for Travel Workers: September + Golden Week in Review

Ep 270: From Japan to South East Asia to South America: Confronting the Cumulative Challenges of Tourism, with Joao Romao

Ep 269: ASEAN & APAC Still Playing Air Travel Catch-up, Bali Floods Fallout & Koh Samui’s Mega-Bridge: This Week in Review

Hannah Pearson

Gary Bowerman