The COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted the travel and tourism industry, economies, livelihoods, public services, and opportunities globally. This is also observed in the small country of Brunei. As one of the few countries that have successfully mitigated COVID-19 transmissions, Brunei is slowly rebuilding its tourism industry through its community-based tourism (CBT). Following Sharma et al.’s resilience-based framework for reviving the tourism industry post-COVID-19 established in 2021, this study incorporates responses from semi-structured interviews with 16 local CBT owners on the challenges, the management, and the CBT initiatives during the height of the pandemic until today. These initiatives include diversifying more tour packages and utilising local resources and products. Despite the lockdown imposed by the government, which suspended businesses and restricted all travelling, local CBT operations flourished, generated more income for the owners, and created job opportunities for the community. Such efforts have caused the public to appreciate local cultures, the environment, and ultimately increase CBT experiences in the country. While shedding light on Brunei’s unique management of its tourism industry during the pandemic, this paper also demonstrates theoretical and conceptual contributions to the recent literature of resilient and transformational tourism and provide suggestions on how to manage CBT operations during these challenging times.

This paper highlights the findings of a study into the language use, identity and attitudes of some Bruneian Malay government officers and students living in London. It is found that their allegiance towards the Malay language and Bruneian culture remains strong, despite their living in a largely Anglophone metropolis which requires them to communicate predominantly in English. As highly proficient bilingual speakers, the respondents are highly aware of the importance of maintaining their vernacular Brunei Malay as a marker of their identity. Through the use of observation and semi-structured interview methods, it emerges thatpredicted patterns of language shift towards the global language do not occur, and there is evidence of maintenance of strong Malay identity precisely because of their requirement to use more English in out-group communication contexts. The ‘zero-sum game’ notion, of more English equalling less Malay, is not applicable. This paper includes vignettes which show the participants negotiating between their languages in work and study contexts. It also demonstrates the need to consider how English interconnects with the other languages that are found in the repertoire of globally mobile South-East Asians.