The Travel Industry Podcast for ASEAN and Beyond...

With travel starting to return, Gary kicks off a new series called Destination 2022. Each episode will analyse the travel outlook in places that will be hot tickets for South East Asian travellers. We start in South Korea – where the nation’s brilliantly packaged mix of K-pop, K-drama, K-cuisine and K-beauty, plus smart destination video marketing, have kept it top of mind for the region’s youthful travellers. Gary is joined by Dr Jaeyeon Choe in Seoul who teaches Tourism Studies at the University of Swansea, and is Visiting Professor at the School of Hospitality and Tourism at Hue University, Vietnam.

In today’s show, Gary recounts the dramatic events of the past 7 days as some governments in South East Asia finally made decisive moves to restart travel. The process was kickstarted by Singapore whose announcement of 9 new Vaccinated Travel Lanes triggered other countries to start playing catch up. Within days, Malaysia and Thailand had accelerated the return of travel - albeit in different ways. Vietnam and Cambodia are racing to keep up, while Bali’s now in-process reopening to vaccinated inbound travellers remains shrouded in mystery and confusion.

The travel trade media has experienced huge disruption during the pandemic. Story angles have been forcibly changed as South East Asia’s decade of growth disintegrated and destination borders stayed shut. But what happens next as governments in the region prepare to bring back travel and tourism? This week, Gary chats about the intricacies of COVID-era travel journalism with Bali-based Julia Winterflood. During the pandemic, Julia has been Head Writer of The Bali Beat, and a travel journalist for Travel Weekly Asia, BBC Storyworks and Travelfish.

The international travel media continues to change as blogs, vlogs and social media dominate content consumption. On this week’s show, Gary chats with Phnom Penh-based travel writer and editor Simon Ostheimer. Having grown up in Hong Kong, Simon has lived and worked across South East Asia and Greater China over the past two decades. Along the way, he has managed city magazines in Shanghai, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, plus a newspaper in Phuket.