Ep 316: Thailand's Tourism Tax is Back, Vietnam Targets 50 Million Visitors & Russia Entices South East Asian Tourists

“Tourists are now viewed as a source of taxation revenue. It’s increasingly hard to raise taxes on your own citizens, but if you have 30+ million tourists each year, that’s a lot of potential tax you can raise.” This week, Gary and Hannah discuss the multiple challenges Thailand faces in increasing its proposed tourism tax, from THB300 to THB450 - and collecting it. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s stellar tourism run continues with a raft of upcoming initiatives and an eye-watering new inbound tourism target. As South East Asian nations have become accustomed to welcoming more Russian tourists, what about travel in the reverse direction? Russia’s tourism authorities are targeting tourists from the region to bolster its visitor economy. Plus, we tackle the latest airline route rationalisations and service cutbacks attributed to the Iran War fuel crisis, and a new tourism budget row in the Philippines. Finally, we look at how Vietnam (digital heritage passport) and Indonesia (premium tourism) are introducing new thinking into their domestic travel economy planning. All this and much more.