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

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?