International travelers often view Southeast Asia through the lens of single-country itineraries, missing the cultural depth and geographic proximity of neighboring nations. While visitors flock to marquee hubs, the opportunity to link distinct cultural, culinary, and historical landscapes across borders remains underutilized. Without cohesive cross-border storytelling and accessible booking pathways, tourists miss out on experiencing the region as a unified, diverse whole.
ASEAN Tourism addresses this opportunity with its new regional campaign, "SEABlings: Closer Than You Think," developed in partnership with Agoda and AirAsia MOVE. By reframing Southeast Asia as an interconnected network of eleven member states, the initiative encourages travelers to add neighboring destinations to their itineraries. Learn more about the SEABlings: Closer Than You Think campaign. In this interview, Dr. Edward Koh, Lead Country Coordinator for ASEAN Tourism Marketing, discusses the vision behind the campaign, the inclusion of Timor-Leste, and the strategic importance of promoting cross-border exploration.
Q: Long-haul visitors often treat Southeast Asian countries as standalone trips. What makes the "SEABlings: Closer Than You Think" campaign a vital framework for encouraging travelers to cross borders during a single visit?
Dr. Edward Koh:For many long-haul travelers, Southeast Asia can still feel like a collection of individual destinations rather than one connected region. SEABlings: Closer Than You Think aims to change that perspective by showing travelers just how well-connected and complementary our 11 Member States truly are.
The “SEABlings” campaign brings this idea to life in a relatable way. Much like siblings, each destination has its own personality, yet there are also deep threads of commonality running across the region in food, culture, language, and experiences that make Southeast Asia greater than the sum of its parts
Ultimately, we want travelers to see a trip to one Southeast Asian destination not as an endpoint, but as a gateway to discovering another. By encouraging multi-destination travel, we hope to inspire longer stays, deeper exploration, and greater dispersal of tourism benefits across the region. This vision aligns with the broader priorities of the ASEAN Tourism Strategic Plan 2026–2030 in strengthening regional integration and promoting more sustainable and inclusive tourism growth across Southeast Asia.
Q: The campaign marks the debut of updated regional branding welcoming Timor-Leste as ASEAN’s eleventh member state. How does this expansion enrich the collective identity and multi-destination appeal of the region?
Dr. Edward Koh: Timor-Leste’s admission on October 26, 2025 marked ASEAN’s first expansion in 26 years, since Cambodia joined in 1999. It is a significant moment for ASEAN and a natural moment to reintroduce the region as a family of 11 Member States. It also presents an opportunity to refresh our regional tourism identity, with an updated logo and brand identity reflecting the addition of Timor-Leste to be rolled out later this year.
Timor-Leste brings a distinctive dimension to Southeast Asia’s tourism story. Travelers can discover landmarks such as Cristo Rei of Dili, a 27-meter statue overlooking the Bay of Dili from Cape Fatucama, or venture to Atauro Island, known for its crystal-clear waters, exceptional marine biodiversity, and diving and snorkeling experiences. Its surrounding waters are also home to whales and dolphins, adding to Timor-Leste’s appeal for nature and marine tourism. Its unique cultural heritage, landscapes, and marine experiences enrich the diversity that travelers can discover across the region and in a multi-destination journey; that diversity matters., Each destination offers travelers a different perspective and another reason to continue exploring.
As ASEAN’s newest Member State, Timor-Leste also fits naturally into the SEABlings narrative. It gives us an opportunity not only to welcome a new member of the ASEAN family, but also to introduce travelers to a destination they may not yet know well. That spirit of discovery lies at the heart of multi-destination travel. We want travelers to appreciate what connects Southeast Asia, while being equally drawn in by what makes each destination uniquely its own.
Q: "SEABlings" is structured around five specific pillars: shared flavors, shared cultures, shared words, shared experiences, and hidden discoveries. How do these themes help travelers connect the dots between neighboring destinations?
Dr. Edward Koh: The five pillars are designed to help travelers discover both the connections that binds Southeast Asia together and the distinctiveness that makes each destination worth exploring in its own right.
Shared flavors speak to perhaps the most immediate of these connections. Take laksa, for example. Travelers might encounter the rich, coconut-based laksa familiar in Singapore, and then discover the tangy, fish-based asam laksa associated with Penang. The connection is recognizable, but the experience changes as you cross borders, giving travelers a reason to taste, compare, and keep exploring.
Shared cultures highlight how traditions, festivals, crafts, and ways of life can have common threads across the region while taking on distinctive local expressions. It invites travelers to appreciate both a shared heritage and the rich diversity within it.
Shared words uncover the linguistic connections that run across parts of Southeast Asia. A simple word like “makan,” meaning “to eat,” is familiar in both Malay and Indonesian. Similar connections can be found across other languages in the region, such as “pinto” in Tagalog and “pintu” in Indonesian, both meaning “door”. These small moments of familiarity can help travelers recognize the connections across destinations, even as they encounter different languages and cultures along the way.
Shared experiences focus on the rhythms of everyday life, from night markets and food culture to local celebrations and community experiences. Travelers may find something familiar while discovering how differently it comes to life in each destination.
Finally, hidden discoveries celebrate what is unique to each Member State. It encourages travelers to venture beyond familiar tourism gateways and uncover lesser-known places and experiences that give them another reason to continue their journey across the region.
Together, the five pillars show travelers what Southeast Asia holds in common, while celebrating everything that makes each destination distinctly its own.
Q: Partnering with digital travel platforms like Agoda and AirAsia MOVE bridges promotional inspiration with practical booking tools. How do these private-sector collaborations remove friction for travelers planning spontaneous intra-regional trips?
Dr. Edward Koh: Inspiration is only the first step. We also want to make it easier for travelers to turn that inspiration into an actual journey.
Partnering with digital travel platforms such as Agoda and AirAsia MOVE helps bridge the gap between promotional inspiration and practical action. When a traveller is moved by a campaign but faces complexity in planning — finding flights, comparing accommodation, or piecing together a multi-destination itinerary — that enthusiasm can quickly give way to inertia. By integrating with platforms that travellers already use to search and book, we reduce the steps between "I want to go" and "I've booked it."
For spontaneous intra-regional travel in particular, this matters enormously. Unlike long-haul trips that are planned months in advance, intra-regional journeys are often decided on shorter timelines, where ease and speed of booking can be the difference between a trip that happens and one that doesn't. Platforms like Agoda and AirAsia MOVE are well-positioned to surface relevant multi-destination options, bundle flights and stays, and present travellers with routes and combinations they may not have considered — all within a familiar, trusted interface.
Beyond convenience, these partnerships also extend our reach. These platforms have large, engaged user bases across the region and beyond, allowing campaign messaging to connect with travellers at the precise moment they are in a booking mindset. That alignment between inspiration and intent is difficult to achieve through traditional promotional channels alone and is where private-sector collaboration adds the most value.
Q: As microtravel and short-haul regional getaways continue to rise, what infrastructure and policy advancements are supporting ASEAN’s goal to make cross-border movement simpler for visitors?
Dr. Edward Koh: Seamless travel and accessibility have become increasingly important priorities for ASEAN tourism. At the ASEAN Tourism Forum in Cebu in January 2026, ASEAN Tourism Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to positioning Southeast Asia as a single, seamless tourism destination, alongside continued efforts to improve connectivity and streamline travel facilitation.
Discussions have also advanced around how visa arrangements could be further simplified to encourage travel across the region. This builds on existing efforts to make cross-border travel easier, including visa-free arrangements for ASEAN nationals, subject to the respective entry requirements of each Member State, as well as digital arrival processes, e-visa arrangements where applicable, and increasingly streamlined immigration processes. Travel facilitation and the progressive reduction of barriers to intra-regional travel have long been central to ASEAN’s agenda.
At the same time, strong regional air connectivity remains fundamental to making multi-destination travel a practical reality. Southeast Asia’s extensive network of full-service and low-cost carriers gives travelers more options to combine destinations flexibly, including shorter and spontaneous trips within the region.
For a campaign like SEABlings, this broader environment is important. As the region moves toward more seamless cross-border travel , our role from a tourism marketing perspective is to make those possibilities more visible, helping travelers realize that adding another Southeast Asian destination can be a natural extension of their journey and not a logistical stretch.
Q: Looking forward to the ASEAN Tourism Marketing Strategy 2026–2030, how do you see intra-regional travel redefining the economic resilience and cultural preservation of local communities across Southeast Asia?
Dr. Edward Koh: Intra-regional travel has the potential to play a meaningful role in both the economic resilience and cultural vitality of local communities across Southeast Asia.
From an economic standpoint, intra-regional travellers tend to travel more frequently and with greater familiarity with the region, which can translate into more dispersed spending patterns. Rather than concentrating tourism activity in a handful of well-known gateways, a strategy that actively encourages multi-destination travel helps direct visitor flows — and the economic benefits that come with them — toward a broader range of communities, including those in less-visited destinations.
On a cultural dimension, when travellers are encouraged to explore beyond the familiar and engage with the everyday rhythms of local life — through food, festivals, crafts, and community experiences — it creates conditions where cultural heritage has tangible value. Communities are more likely to sustain and invest in their traditions when those traditions are recognised and appreciated by visitors, rather than bypassed in favour of more commercialised attractions.
The SEABlings campaign reflects this thinking. By framing Southeast Asia's diversity as something to be curious about rather than navigated around, we hope to cultivate a traveller mindset that is more exploratory, more respectful, and ultimately more beneficial to the communities that make this region worth visiting in the first place.
Promoting intra-regional mobility transforms how the world experiences Southeast Asia. By viewing member states not as isolated attractions but as close siblings with shared heritage, travelers can unlock richer, more varied journeys. ASEAN Tourism’s collaborative strategy pairs public-sector vision with modern digital booking infrastructure to convert travel inspiration into seamless, multi-stop itineraries.
As global travel demands more authenticity and value, connected regional ecosystems offer a sustainable model for the future of tourism. Unlocking cross-border travel distributes economic benefits directly to local communities and hidden destinations beyond primary gateway cities. By treating the region as one connected destination, ASEAN ensures that every trip delivers an expansive look into the heritage of Southeast Asia.
To learn more, visit https://www.visitsoutheastasia.travel/
