Ep 7: COVID-19 Wreaks Travel Havoc Across Asia

After three weeks in Japan, Singapore and Italy, Gary and Hannah are back in KL to recap the top travel talking points from September and early October. China’s Mid-Autumn Golden Week has just wrapped up, so we assess the current state of play in a diversifying Chinese outbound market. Elsewhere, we discuss a raft of new Muslim-friendly tourism initiatives being introduced across South East Asia, note a shift towards waterborne transport innovation and crunch the numbers of a tax relief scheme for travel industry workers in Indonesia.

Economic and social processes shape tourism development, but - in turn - tourism reshapes economic spaces, and that is creating new challenges in South East Asia and beyond. This week, Gary welcomes Joao Romao, Associate Professor at Yasuda Women’s University in Japan, to discuss his new book, Economic Geography of Tourism. An economist, tourism strategy advisor and former travel documentary maker, Joao assesses contemporary tourism through a lens of shifting global economic, technological, societal, environmental and political challenges.