Everyone Everywhere All at Once: The Rise of Digital Nomads in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia welcomed over 100 million tourists in 2023, just over 70 per cent of pre-COVID-19 pandemic tourist arrivals. As tourism slowly recovers, a new type of foreign visitor has recently gained prominence. Digital nomads, as they are casually known, are incredibly mobile cosmopolitan individuals who blur separations between travel and work and are disrupting (for better or worse) both travel and work. Worldwide, attracting global talent has become a key business strategy, with economies and businesses keen to drive innovation and foster economic growth by attracting professionals with in-demand skills. Digital nomads have made flexibility, travel, and mobility synonymous with their work, augmenting global demand for skilled talent. Despite the benefits of contributing economically and enhancing knowledge exchanges, an estimated 40 million transient and (im)permanent remote workers worldwide can strain economic, environmental, and cultural resources in destination countries.

Digital nomads utilise technologies that enable them to work remotely through the Internet. These workers-cum-travellers often adopt modern “nomadic” lifestyles as their work not only affords them the freedom to untether themselves from centralised offices/ bases, but also allows flexibility to travel and work from anywhere, anytime. These benefits appear popular among younger professionals, with around 75 per cent of digital nomads worldwide being aged between 18-39 years old. Typically armed with a laptop and/ or smartphone with a penchant for adventure.

What benefits do digital nomads bring to destination countries? Digital nomads potentially provide economic benefits through direct transactions. Around 69 per cent of digital nomads’ average annual incomes range between US$50,000 and US$250,000. With relatively high incomes, they are poised to contribute positively through purchasing local goods and services. Additionally, digital nomads can facilitate cultural and professional exchanges by interacting and collaborating with locals to develop new business ideas through knowledge transfers. Digital nomads thus theoretically inspire greater entrepreneurial spirit.

Southeast Asian countries are acutely aware of these rapid evolutions to these confluences of work and tourism. Popular Southeast Asian destinations for digital nomads have released visas designed to attract digitally mobile workers. Whereas digital nomads could only hope to arrive on tourist or bureaucratically restrictive and exorbitantly expensive long-term stay visas in the past, they can now legally and professionally engage in their foreign and digitally based work within chosen destinations. Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia have recently pioneered initiatives to attract and cater to this new work/ travel demographic.

In October 2022, Malaysia became the first country in Asia to launch a visa scheme targeting digital nomads. Malaysia’s De Rantau Nomad Pass, launched by its Digital Economy Corporation, aims to attract high-earning tech and non-tech professionals to stay and work for up to 12 months (with the option of a further 12-month extension) in Malaysia. The Malaysian government hopes to utilise this platform to boost digital adoption, develop digital professional mobility, and promote tourism in the country. The De Rantau Nomad Pass has attracted more than 3,000 applications, with over half of them approved as of June 2024. The top five applicant countries were Russia, Pakistan, the UK, Japan and Australia.

In 2024, Thailand and Indonesia followed suit with similar digital nomad visas. The multi-purpose Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) not only intends to help boost economic development through tourism, but also aims to advance Thailand’s “soft power” initiatives through Muay Thai lessons and Thai cooking classes. The visa entitles visa-holders and their dependents to multiple 180 consecutive days’ stays over five years. In Bali, Indonesia, the E33G Remote Worker Visa permits digital nomads to stay for up to a year while they are employed outside of Indonesia. The Philippines is set to become the next Southeast Asian country to offer its own digital nomad-centric visa after local laws are passed.

However, the arrival of digital nomads in Southeast Asia brings multiple challenges which are not unique to this class of traveller. In fact, they compound and intersect with existing complications of global mass tourism and overtourism.

Firstly, short-term rentals, which both tourists and digital nomads heavily rely on, through services provided by companies like Airbnb have been criticised for pricing locals out of their cities. This creates “bubbles” that separate foreign tourists and local communities. As digital nomads generally possess greater purchasing power due to higher salaries, rental rates inevitably increase in popular areas. Malaysia’s De Rantau Nomad Pass arguably exacerbates this issue by promoting that Malaysia offers “a quality lifestyle for a fraction of what you would pay in the US and Europe.” Without proper regulation, local communities may lose out in own backyards.

Secondly, uncontrolled influxes of these upwardly mobile and adaptable travellers aggravate ongoing socio-cultural clashes with local communities. Balinese authorities caught digital nomads breaking local laws and operating illegal businesses that push out local businesses. Foreign enclaves have also appeared, segregating foreigners from locals. This could breed ignorance and disrespect for local culture and people. Digital nomad arrivals arguably exacerbates Bali’s long-existing problems with badly-behaved foreigners.

Finally, unsustainable tourism development may occur. Bali’s suspension of building new hotels to curb overdevelopment, and significant financial and bureaucratic barriers in obtaining work/ travel visas (visas from Malaysia requires annual incomes between US$24,000 to US$60,000, and the DTV requires proof of at least 500,000 Thai baht in assets) are signs that countries want to control the quality of foreign visitor arrivals and manage economic and sustainability impacts. Overall, providing for digital nomads and tourism must be balanced with the destination countries’ needs and infrastructural capabilities.

The flexibilities accorded by the digital nomad lifestyle and Southeast Asian countries’ responses to their emergence point toward interesting implications for more porous international movements of people around Southeast Asia. Within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), there have been discussions surrounding a potential ASEAN Common Visa since 2016 to enhance ASEAN’s tourism development and facilitate seamless travel across ASEAN countries that adopt this initiative. Will a ‘Schengen’-like visa arrangement for free mobility between ASEAN countries be beneficial? In April 2024, Thailand advanced the idea of a common ASEAN visa under former Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin within the context of needing to strengthen Thailand’s tourism sector. The common visa concept has also been supported by countries like Vietnam, which views this as a positive initiative to increase both international arrivals and drive competition by capitalising on ASEAN-wide tourist arrivals.

With international travel resuming after the COVID-19 pandemic, newly normalised evolutions to work, such as the rise in remote work opportunities and emergence of the digital nomad lifestyle, have made the nature of work (and global talent attraction) around the world increasingly mobile, flexible and interconnected. Looking ahead, the future of work will likely follow this trend should discussions of an ASEAN common visa materialise. Despite ASEAN countries desiring to capitalise on the economic potentials of foreign visitor arrivals, it is important to remember that beyond leaving nothing but footprints, all visitors and local governments in popular destinations must be conscious not to step beyond sustainable limits.

Editor’s Note:
ASEANFocus+ articles are timely critical insight pieces published by the ASEAN Studies Centre.