Tuk-tuk driver Khon Mony normally shuttles at least four groups of tourists to the ancient stone spires of Angkor Wat in Cambodia each week. But in all of May, he did not get a single customer.
He blames the war raging more than 3,000 miles away in the Middle East.
Since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February, airfares have soared — doubled on some routes — and the fighting has repeatedly disrupted flights at the commercial aviation hubs of Dubai and Doha.
“I worry that my daughter is not healthy because I cannot give her enough milk like before,” said Mr. Khon, as he looked out across a quiet street in Siem Reap, a major tourism hub in Cambodia.
The fallout from the war is the most jarring disruption to Southeast Asia’s vital tourism industry since the Covid pandemic, according to travel industry officials.
After factoring in gasoline costs and debt payments, Mr. Lam said he had just enough to buy soy milk for his 1-year-old daughter while his wife was pregnant with their second child.
“I am worried about my second baby because I do not have money saved for his birth,” Mr. Lan said.
In neighboring Thailand’s Phang Nga province, there is a similar crisis. Hotel bookings there have dropped by around 50 percent since the war began, local officials said.
At Surakul Pier — the main gateway for boat tours to Koh Khao Phing Kan, an island that featured in a James Bond film — the financial damage was visible. Where a steady procession of minibuses and long-tail boats once carried thousands of tourists a day, dozens of vessels now sit idle, rocking quietly at their moorings.
“I don’t know how long we can survive,” said Channipha Laklaem, 46, who collects the pier’s boat fees of 10 Thai baht, or $0.30. There had been almost no trips to collect fees from since the war began, she said.
Rungrat Huailek, 53, who has run boat tours in Phang Nga for 30 years, said that with the European tourists gone, residents were cutting nonessential expenses. He said his monthly earnings had dropped from around $900 to about $300, and he was forced to burn through most of his savings.
The Indonesian island of Bali, a global tourist hot spot, has been more resilient. Its economy has been insulated from the shock of the Iran war by a steady stream of travelers from Australia and China. But local tour operators who catered specifically to European visitors said they were worried about the coming months.
Governor Wayan Koster of Bali said the Iran war had reduced the number of European visitors who reached the island by transiting through Middle Eastern travel hubs. Putu Winastra, chairman of the island’s tour agency association, said he had frozen salaries at his company because he expected bookings to drop by 45 percent this year.
Bali’s tourism officials have launched an urgent campaign to find new customers elsewhere, sending sales missions to Australia, China, Singapore and South Korea, Mr. Winastra said. The Indonesian government has also waived taxes on domestic economy airfares to encourage Indonesians to holiday at home.
For now, he is cutting down on what he eats so he can give a little more porridge to his daughter.
“I have no other choice,” he said.
