Ep 55: Is it Time to Rethink Chinese New Year Tourism Marketing?

About This Episode

10 Feb 2021 • 31m00s

Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, Lunisolar New Year, Spring Festival and Tet – this week’s show talks all things travel for the upcoming holiday.

In recent years, Chinese New Year brought a welcome surge of inbound visitors from China into ASEAN, and stimulated strong intra-regional and domestic trip volumes. This year, CNY is a purely homegrown travel scenario.

In some countries - like Malaysia - inter-state travel is not even permitted, while COVID-19 infection spikes are impacting domestic travel in Thailand, Vietnam and China.

Confidence in travel across the region may be at its lowest point since the pandemic struck - for what is normally a joyful and vibrant time to take a vacation.

As South East Asia confronts a second consecutive CNY under the shadow of COVID-19, should travel marketers rethink their approach to public holiday tourism in future? Plus, will shifting societal factors in China impact the future flow of CNY visitors into ASEAN and other Asia Pacific destinations?

View All Episodes

Latest Episodes Catch up with the pods you may have missed

Play
13 Jun 2025 • 33m14s

Ep 257: Chinese Backpackers, Mountains Clad with Solar Panels, a Giant Lenin Statue & Delightful Almaty: An Epic Overland Journey from Bali to Britain, with Stuart McDonald

“I wish I had 640 days to do this trip, not 64.” Bali-based Stuart McDonald, founder of Travelfish, is 34 days into an ambitious two-month overland trip across 18 countries from his Bali home to Leeds in the UK. So, why is he doing it? What has he experienced en route? And what have been the finest discoveries of the journey so far? This week, Gary catches up with Stuart in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, to track back across his train and-bus route so far, which has taken him from Bali to Jakarta, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Play
6 Jun 2025 • 40m55s

Ep 256: A 'Resort Airline', An OTA Law Suit, Time for Timor Leste & Blackpink Back in the Area: May 2025 in Review

May was another hectic month of BIG travel, tourism and geopolitical talking points in South East Asia. This month’s roundup takes Gary and Hannah around ASEAN, from our home city of Kuala Lumpur to Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Timor Leste and Vietnam – plus China, India (sort of), Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan. En route, we discuss China’s new ASEAN visa, Indonesia clings to its high-speed rail ambitions, and ASEAN accumulates an 11th member, and perhaps as a 12th in future.