South East Asia’s Top 10 Talking Points of 2025 So Far: Travel & Tourism in a New Era of Global Uncertainty

It's been a pretty unsettling first half of 2025 on a geopolitical level, and the regional outcomes are creeping but still uncertain. Against this backdrop, South East Asian airports have remained busy - but structural and cyclical challenges for travel economies are emerging. So, what do the events of January-June tell us about the rest of 2025 and into 2026? This week, Gary and Hannah assess the 10 top takeaways in the year so far. The regional rewind looks at Singapore's capacity to do things differently, Thailand's China-shaped hole in its visitor arrivals, mixed outcomes in Malaysia, a domestic travel downturn in Indonesia and the undisputed ASEAN success story of Vietnam. Plus, we travel to China, the Middle East and Central Asia, look at shifting geographies for LCCs, regulatory scrutiny for OTAs and nominee travel businesses - and examine the outlook over the coming years of a much closer conjunction of the Lunar New Year and Eid-al-Fitr travel periods (especially in 2028).