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

🎙️ Hosted by Gary Bowerman & Hannah Pearson

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

30 Oct 2025 • 26m28s

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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About The Podcast

The South East Asia Travel Show is written, produced and hosted by Gary Bowerman and Hannah Pearson. Each episode discusses the hottest travel topics in South East Asia and Asia Pacific. More Info »

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📻 Recent Episodes

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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.
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11 Sep 2025 • 30m46s

Ep 268: Techo Airport Takes Off, Thai Baht Volatility & Turmoil in Indonesia: This Week in Review
September is historically a slow month for travel news in South East Asia. With the October Golden Week imminent, followed by the peak November-February tourism season, it’s usually a period to reflect and prepare. Not this year. Political upheaval and economic instability in ASEAN’s two largest economies, Indonesia and Thailand, are front-page news. Events in both nations have the potential to influence the end-of-year travel season, not least in Thailand where an enforced national election is likely.
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🎙️ About The Creators 🎧

Hannah Pearson

Hannah Pearson

Asia travel analyst and speaker. Director of Pear Anderson, a research & sales travel consultancy specialising in SEA and Muslim travel. Read more »

Gary Bowerman

Gary Bowerman

Asia travel analyst and speaker. Co-founder and director of Check-in Asia, a travel content, marketing and market research agency. Read more »

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