The South East Asia Travel Show

In the fourth edition of our Start The Week show; a fast-paced ride through the hottest travel topics in South East Asia and beyond, Gary and Hannah land in Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia Myanmar, Japan and China. En route, we deconstruct the key points of ASEAN's 2026-2030 Tourism Blueprint, look at why the IMF/World Bank annual summit is headed to Bangkok, and get ready to buy our Shanghai flight tickets with China's visa-free travel scheme extended to UK citizens. Plus, we look at why the 20th anniversary of the Singapore Air Show will spotlight the growth and diversity of aviation across South East Asia. We check in on the coastal erosion controversy in Malaysia's Penang Island, and look back on 5 years since the military coup in Myanmar. We finish by assessing what this weekend's elections in Thailand and Japan might mean for the visitor economy outlook of both countries. All this in just 17 minutes.

Welcome to the third edition of our Start The Week show; a fast-paced ride through the hottest 5 travel topics in South East Asia and beyond. This week, Gary and Hannah take a sharp intake of breath as Thailand raises an alert for the deadly Nipah Virus. We also discuss 13 intriguing new city pairs for Changi Airport (with China a key focus), and a new tourism tax in Raja Ampat. Plus, we look at how the Philippines is trying to tap into the lengthy visa-processing wait for its citizens wishing to visit Japan, a new hotel art programme in Singapore, and the Red Lotus Lake social media furore around a Was-it-Wasn't-it-AI-Generated? image of Blackpink's Lalisa, Thailand's tourism ambassador. Very 'Zeitgeist 2026'!
All this - and some top talking points to watch for over the next 7 days - in just 15 minutes.

Welcome to the second edition of our new Start The Week show - a fast-paced summary of the hottest 5 travel topics in South East Asia and beyond. This week’s show has a strong Chinese influence – a theme we expect to intensify through 2026. Gary and Hannah summarise the outlook for Trip.com’s South East Asia expansion as it faces an antitrust investigation in China. In a week of tragic accidents in Thailand and Indonesia, high-speed rail construction and air passenger safety are in the spotlight. Plus, why has the Philippines finally decided to introduce visa-free entry for Chinese tourists? Is AirAsia’s protracted restructure nearing completion - and what does it mean for air travel in the region? And, with the announcement of the BTS World Tour dates, why is Singapore “rubbing its hands with glee”? All this and more in 15 minutes…

In 2025, The South East Asia Travel Show was downloaded in more countries than ever before. Listeners logged in across the globe, from Albania to Liberia and Micronesia to Venezuela. But which were our Top 20 listener markets in 2025? During the year, we produced 43 editions of the show, but which were the 5 most-downloaded shows? And which country is the subject of 2 of our Top 5 shows, and what does that tell us about the direction of travel through 2025 and into 2026? Join Hannah and Gary on a whistle-stop rewind tour through the key topics and themes that we covered last year. We also discuss why 2025 was a Year of Recalibration, Realignment and Readjustment and, ultimately, a Year of Unanswered Questions.

Welcome to the debut edition of our new Start The Week show - a succinct 15-minute summary of the hottest 5 travel topics in South East Asia and beyond. Our first mini show takes Gary and Hannah from Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand to China and Saudi Arabia. En route, we discuss a potential Disney theme park in eastern Thailand, Chinese cruise tourism, e-gate tech challenges between Singapore and Malaysia, cross-border EV charging packages, and the logistics of developing a Hajj village for almost a quarter of a million Indonesian pilgrims. All this and more in less than 15 minutes...

If 2025 heralded a new Age of Uncertainty across global political landscapes and economic sectors, what does 2026 hold in store for South East Asia and the broader Asia Pacific region? And how will the myriad risks and uncertainties that emerged last year influence travel and tourism patterns in 2026? Was 2025 the end of days for many post-pandemic travel 'trends'? And what vital lessons did 2025 teach us for the rest of the decade? To kickstart 2026, Gary and Hannah analyse 12 topics, themes and developments that we think will shape travel economies in the 11 nations of ASEAN, plus India, China and Japan. No spoilers, but our broad-ranging discussion journeys from travel infrastructure investment to human-engineered tourism, and the fight for regulated (alternative) accommodation to the AI challenges that the travel industry is failing to confront. Plus, which two countries, one in South East Asia and one in North East Asia, do we expect to dominate the regional discourse in 2026 - and why? All this and much more as we preview a year that is harder than most to predict!

"I was at a tourism conference in Hangzhou in 2018, where Chinese companies showed how they were using AI to personalise travel for users. That's nearly eight years ago." In 2025, AI became a strategic commercial tool in all sectors, including travel and tourism. But it isn't widely understood just how effectively embedded AI already is in China's tourism sector, and how far ahead its leading players are to much of the world. On the final show of 2015, Gary welcomes back Joao Romao, Associate Professor at Yasuda Women’s University in Japan, to debate the shifting Geopolitics of Travel in Asia six years after the first cases of Covid-19 were discovered in Wuhan, China. Joao is the author of Economic Geography of Tourism, which places contemporary tourism in the context of global economic, technological, societal, environmental and political challenges. We discuss the evolving AI-in-travel landscape and the multiplicity of post-Covid variables shaping travel decision making.  We analyse how Covid savaged the value of the Yen leading to a surge of inbound tourism, while making outbound travel expensive from Japan. And we dive into the implications for regional travel of icy bilateral relations between China-Japan. Plus, we look at the Middle East's investment-driven approach to tourism growth, and how this might impact South East Asian destinations in future. Meanwhile, what is the Circuit of Proximity, and why does it matter? And what did governments across Asia learn about their travel economies during the Covid shutdowns - and are those learnings are being effectively applied six years later?

So, another year is almost over - but what did we learn in 2025, South East Asia's third full year of travel since the Covid pandemic? This week, Gary and Hannah delve through the archives to take stock of an eventful 12 months for travel and tourism in South East Asia and the broader Asia Pacific region. We journey from the regional turmoil of Trump's tariffs to the tourism impacts of scam centres, and from Singapore setting the standard on SAF to Timor Leste becoming ASEAN's 11th member. Plus, we ask what happened to the ASEAN Tourism Visa, and question why the Philippines is pushing to promote ASEAN as a single destination. We discuss India's secondary city tourism wave, and look at which countries made new visa-free access moves throughout the year. And we gaze into a crystal ball to foretell whether Thailand and Cambodia might make peace and reopen their borders any time soon. Finally, we delve into Vietnam's remarkable breakout year after an initially slow post-Covid recovery - and its reluctance to offer visa-free access to Chinese tourists.