Accessible Tourism
TRAVEL IMPACT NEWSWIRE โ Edition 69 (2009) โ Monday, Sept 28, 2009
1. PATA Clears Historic Overhaul In Hangzhou
Hangzhou, China: In a surprisingly smooth process, the PATA board and membership approved sweeping changes in the by-laws, focus and structure of the Asia-Pacific regionโs foremost travel & tourism industry organisation. The board approved the changes unanimously with only two abstentions, and the general membership approved the changes unanimously, with no objections or abstentions.
The changes will now be implemented as of the next board meeting in Sarawak, Malaysia, in April 2010. They will lead to an across-the-board revamp in the way PATA is run with more transparency and accountability, greater involvement and participation by the members and faster management decision-making and implementation of plans. (Full details of the proposed revamp were published in Travel Impact Newswire Edition 67, dated Sept 23 2009). Briefly, they include:
A new body, the PATA Executive Board, will be created as the governing body and the corporate/legal Board of Directors of PATA. Its 12+ elected members will be the Legal Directors and will oversee PATAโs internal management. The CEO will be an ex-officio member with no voting rights.
Another new body, the PATA Board, described as โa major new force in PATA,โ will โharness the knowledge and experience of members to focus on (external) industry issues and policies of direct relevance to them and hence to the Association.โ It will comprise of 80+ members representing various arms of the industry and PATA membership.
A Supervisory Board (Finance), referred to โas an important tool of corporate governance,โ will oversee all PATA contracts over US$25,000 per year; all contracts with members of the PATA Executive Board, PATA Board or a PATA officer; and any other PATA contract or project that requires review. PATA management will forward all required contracts and projects to the Supervisory Board for oversight and guidance.
The most important change will be to again make PATA an organisation that derives its strength from grassroots membership. This will mean bringing more of the Asia Pacific regionโs thousands of small and medium sized enterprises back into the fold, and provide them with tools, information and research to survive, especially networking opportunities under the PATA umbrella.
The management will be revamped to become theoretically a more effective traffic-cop conduit between servicing members from below and implementing the policies and plans coming down from the top.
During the discussion process at the outgoing boardโs meeting last Friday, some of the members, led by former PATA chairman and life member Alwin Zecha, voiced their concerns, especially about a clause in the new by-laws which says the new Board will โnot have the power to approve, disapprove or override actions of the PATA Executive Board.โ
Later, former PATA chairman and life member Mr Inder Sharma said giving the Executive Board such all-powerful status will deprive the process of any checks and balances, again pave the way for a return of cliques and cronies. He warned the same scenario would repeat itself that has seen PATA come under fire for lacking transparency and accountability.
He said PATA had gone from one extreme to another. โI agree that there is a sickness that needs to be treated. However, I believe that the course of treatment is too strong, and that it may become a case of overdose.โ
Responding to that, Chairman-elect for 2010-12 Mr Hiran Cooray of Sri Lanka said that as the PATA Board would be voting in the Executive Board, it could also vote it out. Also, the Executive Board has been structured in a way that blocks anyone from serving on it for more than a two-year term, without having to step down for at least one year. He said it ultimately would be about people voting and acting with integrity and in line with the professionalism demanded in the PATA code of ethics. โIf cliques again begin to emerge, itโs sure to come under scrutiny,โ he said.
Mr Cooray, 46, will be the first to serve a two-year term as chairman, a new element of the amended by-laws. Previously, PATA chairmen held office for one year. He also said the CEO Mr Greg Duffell had been specifically told to ensure that the Executive Board does not encounter any surprises, especially on financial matters.
One big challenge facing PATA is meeting the new membership target. The Business Plan for 2010-2012 targets an increase in Category Level Membership (i.e., excluding the Individual members at the chapters level) from an all-time low of 735 in 2009 to 1,002 in 2010 and 1,168 in 2011.
Asked if the target was unrealistic, given the continued volatility in global conditions and the incomplete process of implementing PATAโs restructuring, Mr Cooray said it was up to Mr Duffell to meet the targets he himself had set.
โHis remunderation and salary strcuture is largely based on performance and incentives,โ he said. โIt is our job as the Executive Board members to back him in everything he does, because that is in the interests of the organisation. But personally, the better he performs, the better he will be rewarded.โ
2. Next On The Restructure List โ PATA Travel Mart and PATA Annual Conference
Hangzhou, China: The approval of the changes in bylaws and restricting of PATA has paved the way for the next equally important step โ restructuring and changing the way the PATA Travel Mart is run and operated.
In another refreshing show of transparency and glasnost in PATA, the association disclosed attendance figures showed a continuing decline in both buyer and seller attendance at the marts over the last four years, when the industry has been hit by global and internal crises. This has paralleled the decline in the overall membership of PATA.
Delegate numbers at the PATA Travel Mart in 2009 in Hangzhou totalled 276 buyer organisations and 284 seller organisations, down from 352 and 336 organisations respectively at the Hong Kong PATA Mart (2006) and 327 and 301 organisations respectively at the Hyderabad PATA Mart (2008). Delegate numbers have also similarly fallen, as has total space sold from 4076 sq m (2006) to 3,766 (2008) to 3,399 (2009). The only slight increase was in 2007 when the mart was held in Bali, a destination that always sees a good turnout.
This year, many amongst both buyers and sellers were non-members of PATA. Income from the Mart remains one of PATAโs major revenue sources. After membership dues, the mart and the PATA annual conference, once held back to back, were the top fixtures on the Asia Pacific travel & tourism calendar. The conference was last held in 2006 and an attempt to revive it as a CEO Challenge in April 2008 proved to be a major disaster with PATA suffering a loss of US$100,000, which the previous management had tried to cover up.
Attendance at the PTM has been hit by competition and changing market conditions. Whereas destinations once clamoured to bid for the mart, that is no longer the case. For the 2010 Travel Mart, the only bidder was Macau.
PATA has set up a committee to explore future options. This comprises of former PATA Marketing VP Jerry Picolla (widely recognised as the founder of the PTMs), Mr Tom Nutley, the former Chairman and Managing Director of Reed Travel Exhibitions, who in his heyday ran up to 14 worldwide travel exhibiitions, and Mr Darren Ng, Managing Director of TTG Asia Media, a publication company which also runs the regional MICE tradeshow, IT&CMA and has occasionally run the ASEAN Tourism Forum.
The groupโs brief is to develop recommendations for a โnew styleโ PTM, plan changes to enhance its competitiveness, and attract and retain host destinations. Interviews with the committee members and other buyers and sellers elicited a wide range of initial ideas.
Mr Nutley said the PATA mart suffers from two major issues that are at once its strength and weakness.
Firstly, the PTM represents the geographic diversity of both the Asia Pacific region and the industry. While this is a strength in terms of representing the tourism product, it is also a weakness in terms of having no specific focus as a niche market trade show.
Secondly, the rotation system is a strength because it gives the destination an opportunity to showcase itself. This becomes a weakness as the PTM cannot be associated almost automatically with a โfixtureโ time and place, like WTM London in November, ITB Berlin in March and increasingly ITB Asia in October.
He said that ITB Berlin and WTM London are well-positioned shows, the former linked to the German outbound/inbound market, and the latter to the UK outbound/inbound market. The PTM needs to similarly establish its positioning and basic focus.
He said it would be best to start with a clean sheet, almost as if creating a new mart entirely. This would mean jettisoning all the historical baggage and taking an entirely new perspective to build on the strength and future directions of both PATA and the Asia-Pacific region at large. โWe need to look at what has been done well and what has been done not so well. We can either tinker with the existing mart, or we can start anew.โ
Some more ideas are also being thrown into the pot for recommendation to the future PATA Executive Board:
Merge the mart back with the annual conference, as was the case until the mid-1990s. This would boost attendance by attracting both mid and senior level executives. The two events could overlap by a day in order to cut the overall time involved in attending them.
Host it in one city for two or three years, instead of rotating every year. This will allow the destination to get more bang for the buck in terms of exposure.
Maintain the fixed appointment structure but harness technology to ensure a better networking experience, and also use it to monitor no-shows.
Continue to operate it as a commercial venture and perhaps even outsource it, if necessary, although generating a revenue stream for PATA should not be the predominant determining factor.
While some of the changes may be ready for implementation by the 2010 PATA Mart in Macau, they will need to be approved and set in place at the April 2010 board meeting for announcement of full-scale implementation by 2011.
At the same time, PATA also plans to revive the annual conference as a grand event to mark its 60th anniversary in 2011. However, this is facing similar issues as the mart โ what should be the focus, who should be allowed/invited to attend, what should be the potential revenue stream, etc? These issues also need to be sorted out fairly quickly in order to leave time for potential venues to bid for it.
3. A Tale of Two Travel Marts: Paradise City Hangzhou Hammers I.T. City Hyderabad
The PATA Travel Marts in the I.T. city of Hyderabad in 2008 and this yearโs Mart in Hangzhou have taken PATA members into two secondary cities of India and China, the worldโs most promising tourism source-markets and destinations. But what a contrast they represent.
While Hyderabad had a new airport and a new convention centre that it wanted to showcase, the rest of the city was a mess, with the usual poor standard of roads and infrastructure. Getting to and from the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC) was a monumental challenge. The hotels were way too expensive, public transport was poor and roadworks were still incomplete to and from the new airport.
By contrast, even the Indian delegates at the PATA Travel Mart 2009 marvelled at Hangzhou and how the city has changed over the years. Some delegates who had visited the city about 15 years ago recalled that there was a not a single tall building then. โJust look at it now,โ exulted former PATA Chairman Ram Kohli. โItโs unbelievable what they have done.โ
If secondary cities of Asia like Hyderabad and Hangzhou are slated to be the cities of the future, Hangzhou exemplifies the fact that massive change for the better can be made. Hyderabad touts itself as an IT City but Hangzhou is a well-balanced metropolis of about 7 million that is often referred to as Chinaโs โParadise Cityโ and has recently been conferred the mantle of โBest Tourism City in China.โ
With the sole exception of the World Trade Centre, which was of a lower standard than the recently built HICC, the city of Hangzhou, the Travel Mart, the UNWTO Conference on Destination Management (Sept 21-22) and the rest of the arrangements were nearly flawless. The organisation, efficiency and professionalism of the mart were amazing. The tours, transfers and hotel pick-ups operated punctually. The PATA desks were always well-manned. Those who came through Shanghai were stunned at the ease of the three-hour road transfer via Chinaโs state-of-the-art highway network.
Extremely well-planned with wide boulevards and lots of greenery, modern and traditional shopping areas, Hangzhou has capitalised on the placid beauty of its landmark West Lake, which is soon to be submitted to UNESCO for World Heritage Site status. Just six kilometres outside the city, the Xixi Wetlands also provided a refreshing environmental break.
Mr Li Hong, Director of the Hangzhou Tourism Commission said the city was experiencing a marked increase in domestic tourism. In the first half of 2009, domestic tourists had risen by 12.8% to 24.72 million, and income had risen 15.8% to 33.35 billion yuan. By contrast, fears of the swine flu virus and the international financial crisis had seen foreign tourism fall 2% from Asia, 3.9% from Americas and 25% from Oceania.
He said that as a stimulus measure, the local Hangzhou government had allocated 30 million yuan for development of travel agencies, and another 30 million yuan for development of ten tourism-related industries (Cuisine, Tea, Recreation, Performing Arts, Cosmetics, Health, Fashion, Sports & Leisure, Baby Products and Industry Arts). Said Mr Li, โGetting people to come here is difficult but once they do, they can see the results for themselves.โ
Perhaps the most incredible event was โImpressions,โ the show, produced and directed by the same professionals who did the spectacular Olympics 2008 ceremony. PATA board members and delegates to the UNWTO Conference on Destination Management both saw this outstanding show in which a troupe of more than 200 dancers perform at night on a stage built a few centimetres beneath the surface of the lake, giving the impression that they are dancing on water. With powerful lighting, scintillating music, lavish costumes and amazing special effects, the show was a miniature version of the Olympics opening.
Even at the UNWTO conference, things moved meticulously. With the exception of a lone presentation when the video didnโt work, the audio visual system operated perfectly. Outside the conference room, a large sign warned guests to be careful of their belongings in view of a spate of thefts reported at large hotels around town. Itโs not something many convention halls would do, but it is clearly better to be safe than to be sorry. Precise instructions were the order of the day every step of the way.
Not surprisingly, the Indians were left to ponder why their countryโs tourism potential was lagging so far behind, and which โsystemโ is better. They acknowledged Chinaโs progress, but were adamant that regardless of the Indiansโ lack of discipline, their democracy and freedoms were too valuable to give up. However, one Indian delegate grudgingly admitted that while they were too busy exercising their freedom of speech by squabbling amongst themselves, China had surged ahead on a development path that had pulled millions out of poverty.
Explained the guide on one of the tours, โAs Deng Xiaoping (the former Chinese Communist Party chief who initiated Chinaโs reform process) said, โIt does not matter what colour the cat is as long as it catches miceโ.โ
The Indians are also preparing for more embarrassment ahead. While China put on one of the best Olympics ever, including the astonishing opening ceremony, the Indians are worried about the state of (un)readiness for the Commonwealth Games in October 2010 in New Delhi. Many of the sports facilities are way behind schedule. In early September, the Games President Michael Fennel wrote to the Organising Committee to arrange a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in order to โpersonally brief (him) on the lack of preparations.โ India has not hosted a major Games event for 27 years.
Democracy and freedom may be wonderful but neither are worth much without discipline and a sense of direction. China may lack the former but no shortage of the latter. Hangzhou is a clear outcome of that formula.
4. Want Indian and Chinese visitors? Fix Those Visa Policies
Industry representatives of China and India have criticised visa restrictions on their citizens which they say are becoming among the most important impediments to the growth of the worldโs two most promising outbound markets.
Comments by Mr Vikram Madhok, Managing Director at Abercrombie & Kent India, at the India outbound seminar and Madam Zhang Chunzhi, General Manager of Marketing, Air China, at the opening press conference of the PATA Travel Mart indicated that visa policies were becoming among the most important influencing factors in determining where Indians and Chinese travel.
In line with the growing shift towards last-minute decisions and short-term bookings, Indians and Chinese planning to take a holiday are increasingly opting for destinations where they can get the fastest visa-free or visa-on-arrival access.
Mr Madhok cited Malaysia as an example of a country that had gotten a huge flux of Indian visitors when the visas were relaxed, while Madame Zhang cited the Japanese relaxation of visa issuance processes and the nearly immediate benefit it yielded in attracting Chinese visitors.
The comments were made in the presence of officials from both the UN World Tourism Organisation and Pacific Asia Travel Association which have now been presented with the challenge of following through on this extremely cost-effective means of attracting visitors. At a time when technology easily allows visa applications to be made online, the calls for simplified visa facilities provide a clear agenda for the two organisations to pursue as part of their mission to help members revive travel and tourism in the fastest way possible.
Mr Madhok cited the European countries as being the worst of the visa issuing governments for Indians. He said U.S. visas were also problematic but quickly added that the U.S. had moved to make the process easier. The Europeans, he said, โdonโt seem to careโ in their demands for paperwork.
However, Madame Zhang cited the European single Schengen visa as an example of the kind of visa system that should be set up in other parts of the world. She indicated that if the Europeans could do it, there was no reason why other countries could not. She said visa requirements were now one of the major bottlenecks restricting growth to various destinations.
Dr. Victor Wee, Chairman, Tourism Malaysia, said visitor arrivals from India to Malaysia had doubled from 279,046 in 2006 to 550,738 in 2008, with faster visa processing and visa-on-arrival facilities being one of the key reasons.
Visa policies are being increasingly used as a quick fix strategy by other countries, too. Mani Raj Lamichhane, Manager, Tourism Production and Resource Development of the Nepal Tourism Board said Indians donโt need visas to visit Nepal, and consideration is being given to allow Chinese visitors access without paying the visa fee of US$25. In addition, for 2011, the Nepal Tourism Year, the country will be waiving the visa fee for the second visit by the same person during the same year.
China and India are today two of the worldโs fastest growing outbound travel markets. With their huge populations, emerging middle class and massive number of first-time travellers, they are expected to gain top source-market status for many receiving countries well into this century.
Chinaโs outbound travel numbers have grown from 10.4 million in 2000 to 31.02 million in 2005 to 45.8 million in 2008. India is lagging behind, with only 10.7 million outbound trips in 2008, roughly double the number over 2003.
Visa restrictions were classified as one of the major impediments to travel in the 1990s when organisations like the World Travel & Tourism Council were campaigning for removal of bottlenecks obstructing freedom of movement as part of tourism development policies. However, that slogan fell off the radar screen after 9/11 when security issues became the foremost concern. Paradoxically, European and Western countries tightened their visa restrictions, but no longer pressured the developing countries to do likewise.
Countries like Indonesia which tried to implement what they called โreciprocal arrangementsโ in visa issuance policies found themselves coming under huge pressure from the domestic travel industry to relax the policies, and allow in visitors either without a visa or upon payment of a visa-on-arrival fee. For many governments, income from visas goes a long way towards offsetting the costs of running their foreign missions, another reason why they are so reluctant to waive visas or visa fees.
Source : Travel Impact Newswire (imtiaz@travel-impact-newswire.com)
By: Executive Editor: Imtiaz Muqbil.
When: 7/2/2014
