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

Test & Go. Vaccinated Travel Lanes. ‘The Most Open Country in South East Asia.’ One year ago, on 1 November 2021, Thailand introduced the Test & Go tourism entry policy. In the same month, Singapore accelerated its Vaccinated Travel Lanes and Cambodia made travel easier for visitors than anywhere else. This week, Gary and Hannah rewind to November 2021 – the month that reignited travel in South East Asia after 20 months of lockdowns and labyrinthine travel restrictions.

South East Asia is eagerly anticipating a strong end-of-year holiday season, which is nearing fast. We’ve already completed 10 months of 2022 – and October was another busy period for new travel policies, announcements and developments. This week, Gary and Hannah round up the latest travel travel and tourism talking points across the region. En route, we discuss a new Hotel Industry Transformation Roadmap in Singapore, a debut South Asian flight route in Vietnam, and media controversy around flight prices during Malaysia’s upcoming general election.

“Travel news stories should get more interesting now there’s two-way travel again between South East Asia and North East Asia.” With Japan and Taiwan now open for travel, the competitive landscape in Asia Pacific has just become very competitive. This week, Gary and Hannah discuss the Top 8 travel talking points across South East Asia. En route, we check out Singapore Changi as it resumes operations at all four terminals, discuss the visitor arrivals target progress in Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, and Indonesia’s eye-watering projection for domestic trips in 2022.

What’s it like to ride the China-Laos train? Will Vietnam’s North-South Railway get built? When will the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail line open? And is a pan-ASEAN rail network a realistic possibility? This week, Gary assesses the outlook for rail infrastructure development across the region with James Clark, Editor-in-Chief at Future South East Asia and author of the Nomadic Notes newsletter. We look at some of the big railway projects being planned, compare the rail network models in China and South East Asia and ponder what could be the impacts for domestic aviation.