Will an ASEAN Tourism Visa Take Off?

Tucked away on page 81 of the ASEAN Community Vision 2045 is a commitment to “reimagine and intensify quality tourism cooperation” among South East Asian nations. 

Since the early 2010s, tourism has been a significant contributor to the 10 economies of ASEAN. This was fuelled by a coalition of factors, notably the expansion of Chinese outbound travel, and surging demand from India, Russia and the Middle East. South East Asia’s economic growth created an aspirational consumer class that takes trips to neighbour countries on low-cost carriers, which account for more than 50% of flight seats in the region. 

Flags of the ASEAN countries on display in Jakarta. Image: Wikimedia Commons

Until the advent of Covid, travel metrics pointed skyward. Now, almost four years since Thailand launched the Phuket Sandbox to revive tourism during those dark pandemic days, ASEAN is seeking new tourism stimuli. 

The Covid Imperative 

Covid border closures decimated the travel industry. In 2019, South East Asia attracted 144 million international visitors. In 2021, just 2.9 million. The post-pandemic recovery has been measured. In 2024, 121 visitors arrived, or 84% of 2019. Should 2025 surpass the 2019 aggregate, South East Asia would emerge from more than a half-decade of lost growth. 

By 2030, ASEAN is targeting “10.3% of global tourists” totalling 187 million arrivals. Should this target be achieved, it would represent only 30% growth over the 11 years since 2019. 

Meantime, competition to attract tourists away from South East Asia is increasing in China, Japan, South Korea, the Middle East and Central Asia. Beyond investing in airports and railways, ASEAN needs pan-regional mechanisms to streamline travel and generate repeat visits. 

Hence, hype has magnified around the concept of an ASEAN tourism visa – although, for now, ASEAN leaders are reluctant to commit. 

The Schengen Model 

A shared tourism visa has been widely debated since the EU introduced the Schengen visa in 1995. In 2003, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand proposed a Mekong Tourism Visa. In 2016, the World Economic Forum published a paper entitled “ASEAN may have 10 nations but it should only have one visa.” 

More recently, in 2024, Thailand’s then Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin proposed a shared visa for six contiguous nations of South East Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos. The objective was to expedite the the post-Covid tourism recovery after a slow-paced initial rebound in 2023. Regional media created sustained hype around this “Schengen-style visa”, which continues today. 

Srettha Thavisin, previous Prime Minister of Thailand.

Amid the “Six Countries, One Destination” hyperbole, the omission of Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines – three of ASEAN’s five founding nations – made it politically untenable for ASEAN to endorse the visa, hence its absence from the Vision 2045 plan. 

The ASEAN 2045 Vision 

Published at the 46th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur in May, the 155-page ASEAN Community Vision 2045 offers an aspirational 20-year blueprint for greater economic and social integration among the 10 members: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 

The policy paper notes that easing travel access “offers numerous benefits to regional socio-economic development,” one of which is a “growing tourism flow”.   

Yet, despite referencing the word “tourism” 26 times in the Vision 2045 plan, ASEAN remains uncomfortable discussing a regional tourism visa. This largely reflects its institutional limitations rather than a lack of ambition. 

A long shadow remains from ASEAN’s failure to collectively unlock borders during Covid. A proposed ASEAN Travel Corridor failed to materialise as individual members states – led by Thailand, Singapore and Cambodia – sought to reopen unilaterally. 

Despite close relations, travel corridors between ASEAN countries during Covid failed to materialise.

As ASEAN strives to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2045, member states “need to deepen their economic integration and enhance their agility to address multifaceted challenges,” notes Vision 2045. 

The Institutional Challenges 

The Schengen Visa, which permits “borderless” travel between 25 EU and 4 associated nations, is often cited as a template, but the 27-member EU operates more cohesively as a political and legislative bloc than 10-member ASEAN*. 

Unlike the EU, ASEAN does not have supranational institutions, like the EU Commission, Council, Parliament and Court of Justice, to which member nations devolve legal powers to make and enforce binding policy decisions. Nor does it have a central bank to manage project financing. Instead, decision-making “depends on the political will and the commitment of each member state,” Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Research Professor at Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency told the Straight Talk South East Asia podcast last week. 

As the Covid era illustrated, ASEAN nations are economically territorial. Vision 2045 sets out five transnational megatrends – geopolitical tensions, shifting trade flows, technological transformation, climate change impacts, and demographic shifts – but each nation carefully controls its immigration laws and economic interests, of which tourism is a priority. 

A flag being raised at the Indonesian Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka in honour of "ASEAN Day". Image: Wikimedia Commons

Harmonising security and data sharing mechanisms and protocols at land borders, ports and airports for uncertain fiscal gain would be a seismic leap of faith for regional leaders. The current border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia highlights these challenges. 

ASEAN aspires to shake off criticism of being a ‘talk shop’ that outlines a compelling case for regional integration, but treads no further. The Myanmar coup, South China Sea sovereignty disputes, and US “reciprocal tariffs” ranging from 10% (Singapore) to 49% (Cambodia) have highlighted splits on issues of regional importance. 

Vision 2045 recognises these shortcomings, at least in writing “We need to strengthen ASEAN’s institutional capacity and effectiveness, and make ASEAN organs, bodies and mechanisms more decisive, responsive and timely as well as future-ready in addressing global and regional challenges.” 

Meanwhile, geo-economic challenges are proliferating. The recent ASEAN-China-GCC Summit in Kuala Lumpur and expansion of the BRICS bloc underscore a heightened imperative for strategic cooperation across the Global South. 

In the sphere of tourism, external pressures are also developing. Once the summit was completed, China unilaterally introduced a new ASEAN visa for business travellers from 11 South East Asian nations, and concluded visa-free access for all six GCC countries. In addition, the GCC countries are expected to introduce their own regional tourism visa. 

Will an ASEAN visa one day be a possibility?

The New Tourism Visa Influencer? 

For now, the introduction of an ASEAN visa seems remote, but it could gain new impetus as the regional chair rotates to a nation geographically distinct from mainland South East Asia. 

ASEAN’s second-largest country is historically a tourism underperformer, ranked 6th in 2019 and 7th in 2024 for visitor arrivals. Nevertheless, the Philippines is experiencing “an age of transformation as the country seeks to reintroduce itself to the world,” Christina Frasco, Secretary of Tourism for the Philippines, told the Skift Asia Forum in Bangkok in May. 

The Philippines is investing in tourism capacity-building infrastructure and services to support President Marcos Jnr’s national economic development strategy – and views an ASEAN visa as a conduit to achieving its objectives. 

“Competition for tourists between South East Asian nations is healthy, but collaboration is healthier,” says Secretary Frasco. “We hope that the subject of an ASEAN visa will come up again when the Philippines hosts the ASEAN Summit in 2026.” 

* ASEAN has agreed in principle for Timor Leste to become the 11th member in October.

Asia Media Centre