Ep 237: South East Asia's Top 8 Pre-Lunar New Year Travel & Tourism Talking Points: January 2025 in Review

Listen to this episode

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Podbean

View All Episodes

About This Episode

24 Jan 2025 • 34m07s

The Lunar New Year travel period has begun! Chinese tourists are staggering their trips to South East Asia to avoid the Golden Week travel rush…

So, following this trend, we’ve expedited our monthly round-up. This week, Gary and Hannah assess the Top 8 talking points from a very hectic January 2025 – perhaps even more frenetic than usual given the fairly early occurrence of the LNY. This month’s top takeaways take us to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Laos, Myanmar… and more.

Along the way, we discuss the Thai Prime Minister’s AI video to assure Chinese tourists about safety, Bali buries its hotel development moratorium, the Visit 2026 campaign experiences hiccups in Malaysia, and there’s an unexpected move in Laos as it revokes visa waivers. Plus, we touch on an intriguing budget win by the Secretary of Tourism in the Philippines, and we celebrate the first same-sex marriage ceremonies in Thailand.

« Next Episode Ep 238: Using the 5Fs, White Lotus, Lalisa & Soft Power to Reposition Thai Tourism, with Chattan Kunjara, Tourism Authority of Thailand Previous Episode » Ep 236: South East Asia's Top 8 Travel Mega-Projects in 2025, with James Clark, Future 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 237: South East Asia's Top 8 Pre-Lunar New Year Travel & Tourism Talking Points: January 2025 in Review

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