Post-Covid cultural tourism recovery needs in southeast asia

This paper presents the outcomes of the "Cultural Tourism Recovery: Sharing Best Practices" project, funded by the Australia-ASEAN Council of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The project facilitated knowledge exchange between cultural tourism initiatives and academic communities across Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines through six hybrid seminars. The seminars focused on sharing experiences of adapting and responding to COVID-19, and exploring strategies for revitalising cultural tourism in the post-pandemic context. The seminar series attracted over 1,200 registrations from more than 700 participants, two thirds of the participants were women. Participant demographics were diverse, with representation from sectors such as education, government, private, and non-profit organisations. Notably, the majority of attendees were from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia with fewer participants from Australia and other nations. A post-seminar survey revealed 72% overall satisfaction with the seminar series. The six seminars, hosted both online and in hybrid formats, covered a range of themes: 1. Introduction and Peer-Sharing (Online) 2. Women & Youth in Cultural Tourism (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) 3. Designing Regenerative Tourism Offerings Post-Pandemic (Cairns, Australia) 4. Marketing Cultural Tourism (Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia) 5. Adaptation & Economic Diversification (Baguio, Philippines) 6. Report Dissemination & Sharing (Online) Thematic content analysis and an evaluation survey identified recurring themes across all seminars, reflecting shared challenges and approaches to overcome them. Figure 1 presents the content analysis of open-ended questions conducted using Leximancer. Below is a summary of the major themes discussed by the seminar participants.

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CAUTHE 2025 Conference Handbook

2025

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