Kanaev Evgeniy , Garaeva Aisylu

Southeast Asia as a Single Digital Marketing Area: A Contribution from Tourism Global Value Chains

ЮГО-ВОСТОЧНАЯ АЗИЯ: АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ РАЗВИТИЯ, 2025, №2(67), 66-78

 
Annotation: The article analyzes the possibility of making Southeast Asia a unified space of digital marketing by developing tourism global value chains (GVCs). On revealing major consumption trends in Southeast Asia, the authors discuss the extent of maturity of the digital consumer mindset in the region to finally turn to assessing the process of tourism GVC establishment and the expediency of supporting them digitally. In the authors’ opinion, as the ASEAN member states have not built producer and consumer GVC in which only their enterprises would participate, the development of tourism GVC and their promotion by digital marketing tools is a logical and timely step. To substantiate, these GVC and digital tools to support them will pioneer the establishment a unified digital marketing area in Southeast Asia, which will bring a tangible consolidating component to intra-ASEAN cooperation and, consequently, the achievement of the objectives of ASEAN Economic Community 2025. Attempts to search for new consolidating components of intra-ASEAN cooperation in the year of the establishment of the ASEAN Community 2025, given that this project is work in progress, are timely and account for the relevance of the topic. The article concludes by considering implications of moving towards a unified digital marketing area in Southeast Asia for ASEAN-led multilateralism, which remains under-conceptualized in the scholarly literature.

Keywords: Southeast Asia, ASEAN, integration, consumer trends, digital transformation, global value chains, tourism, digital marketing