Ep 193: Reflections on a Hectic Year of Travel in South East Asia and Beyond, with Vincent Vichit-Vadakan

Listen to this episode

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Google

Podbean

View All Episodes

About This Episode

30 Nov 2023 • 35m42s

Just back from Jakarta and Hanoi, respectively, Gary and Hannah can confirm that South East Asian airports are getting busier as the end-of-year travel season nears.

So, it’s the perfect time to revisit some key tourism themes in 2023 with Bangkok-based travel journalist Vincent Vichit-Vadakan. Vincent was last on the show in April 2022, when the regional outlook was very different.

This year, he has travelled on assignment to over 25 destinations including Singapore and Vietnam on various occasions, plus China, Nepal and Maldives. We discuss the current tourism landscape in Thailand, and the explosive international growth of a Bangkok-based hotel brand. We tackle infrastructure challenges for tourism in Vietnam, talk sustainable hotel development in Singapore, discover outdoor experiences along the Tea Horse Trail in China’s Yunnan Province and explore Kyoto as tourism returns to Japan.

Plus, which airports in South East Asia are operating more effectively than others? And why is Soft Power set to be a tourism battleground in 2024?

« Next Episode Ep 194: 2023 in Review: This Year’s Top 10 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in South East Asia Previous Episode » Ep 192: The Top 8 Under-the-Radar Travel & Tourism Talking Points in South East Asia

View All Episodes

Latest Episodes Catch up with the pods you may have missed

Play

1 Oct 2026 • 30m38s

Ep 321: Tracking the Take-off of AI, Intelligent & Automated Technologies at South East Asian Airports

Digital Twins. Automated Ground Operations. Predictive Sustainability. Humanoid Robots. E-Gates. Urban Air Transport. Inter-modality. South East Asia’s air landscape is changing before our eyes, as air travel volumes increase and passenger expectations are constantly upgrading. These factors broaden the range of operational challenges for major hub airports, fast-growing airports in tier-two and tier-three cities and the new mega-airports opening from Singapore to the Philippines and Australia to Vietnam. Can AI and intelligent technologies improve the management of busier skies and more crowded departures and arrivals lounges without the need to build bigger terminals?

Play

29 Sep 2026 • 30m01s

Ep 320: Vietnam Leads on ASEAN Air Passenger Integration, Severe Weather Events Pummel Asia & Low-Key Chinese Golden Week Outlook

“If you go back three of four years, you’d have expected Singapore to take the lead on such a regionally important project - but now it’s Vietnam.” That seems significant. With three quarters of 2026 completed, pan-Asian air travel networks look rather different from the start of the year. The 9th month of the year, September, featured a raft of intriguing developments across South East Asia, plus China, Australia and Canada.

Ep 193: Reflections on a Hectic Year of Travel in South East Asia and Beyond, with Vincent Vichit-Vadakan

About This Episode

Latest Episodes Catch up with the pods you may have missed

Ep 321: Tracking the Take-off of AI, Intelligent & Automated Technologies at South East Asian Airports

Ep 320: Vietnam Leads on ASEAN Air Passenger Integration, Severe Weather Events Pummel Asia & Low-Key Chinese Golden Week Outlook

Hannah Pearson

Gary Bowerman