Tourism in Asia has yet to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Many countries are currently dealing with the war’s effects on global energy supplies and costs, which have disproportionately affected Asia. Some families are reducing their travel as the cost of transportation and groceries rises around the world. Crowds have thinned in places once associated with travel. With gasoline prices rising and tourism declining, how can we make money?” remarked Siv Pech, a 58-year-old tuk-tuk driver in Siem Reap, home to Cambodia’s centuries-old Angkor Wat temple complex.
Tourism is a vital economic driver for many developing countries. It accounts for approximately 13% of Thailand’s GDP and nearly 9% of Vietnam’s, and it supports millions of jobs in Cambodia. Travellers offer much-needed foreign currency to import-dependent countries like the Philippines and Nepal.
Those tourism revenues are more important than ever as war-related rises in oil prices raise the cost of fuel imports, particularly in sections of the world that rely on the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast for much of its oil and gas supply.
Jitsai Santaputra of The Lantau Group, an energy sector consulting firm, believes that the battle will determine whether tourism enterprises will survive long enough to benefit from the inevitable return of travelers. “This, happening within five years of each other, first the pandemic and now the war, is horrible for the tourism industry,” she stated.
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