Around the Region
There is a particular kind of trip I keep thinking about this week: the one you take somewhere precisely because it is quiet, not despite it. Siem Reap is having a hard year for reasons that have nothing to do with Angkor Wat itself, and everything to do with jet fuel prices thousands of miles away. It made me want to build this issue around that idea a little. Brunei is doing genuinely unglamorous, unhurried work to get two of its best places certified properly. Laos held its first real conversation about what biodiversity tourism should look like, in a province that is already quietly doing it. And on the practical side, both Singapore and the UK are adding small, real costs to flying that are worth knowing about before you book. None of it is dramatic. All of it is useful. That’s the way it is most weeks, if I’m being honest, and I think that is fine. I hope you do too.
This Week in Southeast Asia
Siem Reap Has Never Been This Quiet. That’s Exactly Why You Should Go.
If Angkor Wat has been on your list for years but the thought of elbow-to-elbow sunrise crowds put you off, this is the moment. Ticket sales to the Angkor Archaeological Park fell 32% year on year in the first quarter of 2026, and Siem Reap’s wider visitor numbers dropped by more than a third across the first four months of the year. Khiev Thy, president of the Khmer Angkor Tour Guide Association, told local media the renewed conflict in the Middle East and its knock-on effect on jet fuel prices are the main driver, layered on top of continuing tension along the Cambodia-Thailand border, which has kept all overland crossings closed since mid-2025, even though flights between the two countries continue as normal. Most of Cambodia’s international visitors come from the US, Canada and Europe, and long-haul routing from all three has been disrupted this year.
Ta Prohm, one of the quieter corners of the Angkor complex.
For the guesthouses, tuk-tuk drivers and small tour operators who depend on Angkor’s visitors, that drop is not an abstract statistic. It is empty rooms, quiet streets and lost income for people with no cushion left after the pandemic years. A trip booked now genuinely helps, and it does not need to cost more to do so: choosing a locally owned guesthouse over a chain, a local guide over a pre-packaged tour bus, and eating at family-run restaurants around the Old Market rather than hotel buffets all put money directly where it is needed. We wrote a guide to visiting Angkor before the crowds arrive, timed for exactly this kind of moment. Right now, you barely need the timing trick, just the flight.
Brunei Is Working Quietly to Certify Its Best-Kept Rainforest Secret
While its neighbours chase visitor numbers, Brunei is doing something quieter: putting its two flagship nature sites through a proper sustainability audit. The country’s Tourism Development Department, working with the Forestry Department, has begun a year-long process to certify Ulu Temburong National Park and Luagan Lalak Recreational Park against Global Sustainable Tourism Council standards, the same internationally recognised framework used to certify destinations elsewhere in the world, rather than a locally invented label. The timing is deliberate: it supports Brunei’s Visit Brunei Year 2027 campaign, and the certification project is explicitly framed around Brunei Vision 2035 and the country’s wider tourism roadmap, not as a one-off marketing exercise.
The canopy walkway at Ulu Temburong National Park, Brunei.
Ulu Temburong, reached by a longboat ride up the Temburong River followed by a climb onto a canopy walkway strung above one of Borneo’s oldest untouched rainforests, is the kind of place conscious travellers ask us about and rarely find written up properly, because so little English-language coverage of Brunei exists at all. Nearly 70% of the country remains forested, a genuine conservation achievement in one of the world’s fastest-developing regions, and Luagan Lalak’s wetland habitat in Belait District offers a gentler, lower-effort alternative for travellers who want the same ecosystem without the trek. A credentialed certification process at both sites is worth watching, and worth booking around once it lands.
Laos Held Its First Biodiversity Tourism Forum. Here’s Where to See What They Mean.
Laos’ Ministry of Culture and Tourism, working with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, brought government representatives, tourism businesses, international organisations and educational institutions together in Oudomxay province this week for the country’s first Biodiversity Destination Forum, built around a straightforward idea: nature-based tourism should fund conservation, not erode it. It is not a coincidence the forum was held in Oudomxay rather than the capital. The province is already home to Nam Kat Yolapa, a working biodiversity park along the Kat River where waterfalls, ziplining, trekking and a small species museum sit inside a genuinely protected forest, rather than a manufactured attraction bolted onto one.
The forum arrives as Laos posts real growth, more than 2.5 million international visitors in the first half of 2026, up nearly 10% on the same period last year, with Thailand, China and Vietnam as the largest source markets. The government’s stated ambition is 43 million visitors between 2026 and 2030, a target that only holds up if the growth does not come at the expense of the landscapes people are travelling to see. Nam Kat Yolapa, reached from Muang Xai, Oudomxay’s capital, is roughly a day trip from Luang Prabang and a genuinely good answer to what “doing this properly” looks like on the ground, not just in a forum room. If Laos’ quieter northern provinces are on your radar, this is a good place to start.
Flying Out of Changi After October? There’s a New Line on Your Ticket
From 1 October 2026, every commercial flight departing Singapore’s Changi and Seletar airports must run on at least a 1% blend of sustainable aviation fuel, under the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore’s Sustainable Air Hub Blueprint. Travellers booking tickets from 1 April 2026 onward will see a new mandatory levy to fund it: roughly S$1 for an economy seat on a Southeast Asia route, rising to S$2.80 for Northeast Asia, South Asia or Australia, and considerably more again for longer-haul bands and premium cabins, which are charged at four times the economy rate. Transit and transfer passengers passing through Singapore without starting or ending their journey there are exempt.
It is a genuinely modest amount, a dollar or two on most Southeast Asia-bound tickets, attached to a genuinely substantive decarbonisation mandate, not a symbolic gesture. Sustainable aviation fuel cuts the lifecycle carbon footprint of the flight itself, rather than offsetting it after the fact, and Singapore’s approach of fixing the levy in advance is designed to shield travellers from the kind of fuel-price volatility that has already pushed fares up elsewhere this year. Worth knowing about before you spot an unfamiliar line item on a Singapore Airlines or Scoot booking this autumn, so it does not read as a stealth charge when it is, in fact, the opposite.
The Cost of Flying to Southeast Asia From the UK Just Went Up Again
If you are budgeting a 2026 trip to Southeast Asia from the UK, build in a little more for tax. Air Passenger Duty rises again from 1 April 2026, and Band C, which covers most of Southeast Asia along with Australia and Latin America, pushes the reduced economy rate to just over £100 per passenger and the standard rate for premium economy and business past £250. It is the third consecutive year of increases, following rises already applied in 2024 and 2025, and the government has used inflation-linked adjustments plus a one-off uplift specifically to restore the tax’s real-terms value after several years of high prices.
Airlines “ordinarily pass the cost on to travellers,” according to the government’s own policy documents, particularly on long-haul leisure routes where demand remains strong and capacity stays tight, which describes most flights into Bangkok, Hanoi and Singapore reasonably well right now. None of this changes whether the trip is worth taking. It just means the flight, not the destination, is where your 2026 budget will feel the squeeze, and airlines typically bake the new rate into fares as soon as the schedule is published, so booking sooner rather than waiting for a sale tends to work in your favour this year.
What’s On
This Week
Taste the Local @ Phitsanulok 2026: Phitsanulok, Thailand | 30 July – 2 August 2026
This outdoor food and lifestyle festival at the historic Chan Royal Palace pairs Phitsanulok’s local specialities with live music and a picnic atmosphere, worth the detour if you’re anywhere in the north this weekend.
Ayutthaya Night Run: Fun Fin Fear: Ayutthaya, Thailand | 1 – 2 August 2026
Part road race, part light show, this night run threads through the UNESCO World Heritage city of Ayutthaya, past Wat Mahathat lit up after dark, in what’s become one of the more atmospheric ways to see the ruins.
Coming Up
Mini Balloon Festival & Sun-Dried Squid Festival: Pran Buri, Thailand | 7 – 9 August 2026
Pak Nam Pran Beach hosts a seaside double-header this year, colourful mini hot-air balloons and a nighttime balloon glow alongside a local seafood festival built around the area’s sun-dried squid.
Feel All the Feelings @ Chiang Mai: Lanna Haute Couture: Chiang Mai, Thailand | 8 August 2026
For one night, the Rin Kham intersection becomes an open-air runway for contemporary Lanna textiles, part of Chiang Mai’s ongoing push to put its design scene on the map. Full details on all four events are in TAT’s August 2026 event calendar.
Worth Reading
If the Laos story above has you curious about the country’s quieter conservation side, this is worth your time: The Bolaven Plateau: Where Coffee Cultivation Meets Conservation in Southern Laos.
