Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore have experienced a moderate recovery of inbound tourism, following the lead by the Philippines and Indonesia, a Google official reported in a blog entry published on Tuesday.

In the 'Southeast Asian travelers are back' entry, Google Asia-Pacific travel lead Hermione Joye said that inbound travel demand – visits by non-residents to a country – has experienced the fastest upturn in the Philippines and Indonesia, based on search volumes.

In March, inbound demand for the Philippines already surpassed pre-pandemic figures while Indonesia was close to a full rebound, hitting 104 percent and 94 percent of pre-pandemic search volumes, respectively.

Countries like Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam are quickly following the lead, with their corresponding figures standing at 64 percent, 59 percent, 52 percent, and 55 percent.

Joye said inbound travel into Vietnam from March 27 until April 2 grew 84 percent compared to the same period in 2019, while outbound travel increased 91 percent during the same period.

On the broader market, she said Google internal data showed that 40 percent of inbound tourism searches from the U.S. and Canada went to the Philippines and Vietnam, 40 percent of inbound information from Europe were to Indonesia and Thailand, while 38 percent from the Middle East were to the Philippines.

Indonesia’s Bali resort island was the fastest-growing market in March, while Thailand’s Bangkok ranked seventh, according to Joye.

She attributed travel growth in the region to the dropping of travel restriction orders, reopening of borders, as well as easing of COVID-19 quarantine and testing restrictions.

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