Ep 79: South Korea Emerges As Asia's Most Exciting Travel Market, with Dr Jaeyeon Choe

Listen to this episode

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Google

Podbean

View All Episodes

About This Episode

30 Jun 2021 • 38m00s

While most Asian borders remain locked, South Koreans are heading off on summer holidays to European destinations. They are also booking ahead for Lunar New Year 2022. So what are the reasons behind this unexpected renaissance in one of Asia’s largest outbound travel markets?

This week, Gary and Hannah welcome Dr Jaeyeon Choe, Visiting Professor at the School of Hospitality & Tourism at Hue University, Vietnam, and a sustainable tourism consultant for Insita Bali, Indonesia.

Jaeyeon discusses recent innovations in domestic tourism, including “one-month stay” packages, camping and outdoor cooking tutorials. Now, with an accelerating vaccination rate, Koreans are eager to travel overseas once more.

Ordinarily, this time of year would see large numbers of summer vacationers flying to South East Asian destinations, so will ASEAN’s allure remain in future? [Spoiler Alert: Vietnam and the Philippines are hot picks.] We also talk about innovative booking trends, such as flexible packages and gamified TV travel promotions, an ongoing travel agency revival - and the rekindled passion for travel among Korean honeymooners.

Show notes

Dr Jaeyeon Choe’s LinkedIn profile here.

« Next Episode Ep 80: June in Review: Delta Variant Derails Tourism Planning Previous Episode » Ep 78: Preparing Hotels for a New Travel Era, with The Phuket & Bali Hotel Associations

View All Episodes

Latest Episodes Catch up with the pods you may have missed

Play

4 Aug 2021 • 30m00s

Ep 87: 2021: The Year So Far in Laos, with Jason Rolan

The spectacular country of Laos has been overshadowed as prominent destinations in South East Asia attempt to reopen for travel and tourism. Laos, however, has tentatively set in motion its own reopening plan. So, this week, Gary and Hannah tackle developments in the year so far in Laos with Jason Rolan, who is Senior Partner of Vientiane-based RDK Group. Jason was last on the show in November 2020, when Laos was COVID-safe.

Play

30 Jul 2021 • 30m00s

Ep 86: July in Review: Delta Variant Spreads Across ASEAN & Asia Pacific

July 2021 saw the Delta variant spread at an accelerated speed through the region. It now dominates every aspect of economics, social and health policy and daily discourse. On the monthly review show, Gary and Hannah unravel this month’s worrying statistics from across South East Asia, plus China, Japan and South Korea. We also analyse what the worsening COVID-19 situation combined with variable speeds of vaccine rollout will mean for proposed tourism reopenings in Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.