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Southeast Asia’s Post-Pandemic Tourism Revival

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Pacific Money | Economy | Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia’s Post-Pandemic Tourism Revival

Regional tourism is finally rebounding from the impacts of COVID-19. Will Southeast Asian government do things differently this time around?

Southeast Asia’s Post-Pandemic Tourism Revival

A view of the town of Hoi An, one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist destinations, August 11, 2022.

Credit: Depositphotos

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism industry across Southeast Asia was booming. In 2019, the Philippines received 8.2 million foreign visitors, Indonesia 16.1 million, and Singapore 19.1 million. In Thailand 39.9 million foreigners showed up, making it far and away the regional leader in this area. These four countries combined for 83.3 million inbound tourists in 2019, a level of activity that has big economic consequences. In Indonesia it generated $16.9 billion in foreign exchange while Thailand brought in $57.2 billion.

The pandemic ground all of this to a halt, with 2020 and 2021 being especially difficult years. In 2020, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand saw a combined 1.5 million foreign visitors. And the next year brought only marginal improvement, with 2.5 million visitors. The impact of this disruption has been felt differently across the region. Thailand brings in eye-popping numbers of travelers and foreign exchange, but it also makes the country especially vulnerable to a hard stop in international travel. This is why Thailand pushed hard for a re-opening in 2021. But the emergence of the highly virulent delta variant closed the door on that, and Thailand ended 2021 with only 428,000 inbound travelers.

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