The Dawn of Asia Pacific Travel’s New Era
PATA CEO Liz Ortiguera shared a message with the PATA community on Mar 25, 2022, with updates about progress in the Asia Pacific Travel Industry and the future ahead. The full message has been reposted below:
Dear PATA Members and Industry Colleagues,
After a three month hiatus from any travel, I headed West again beginning of this month for an important personal event - the university graduation of my son in Los Angeles.
Alas, because I needed to "lay low" just before this trip (yes, COVID is not over), I wasn't able to take up WTTC and Julia Simpson's warm welcome to join their event in the Philippines (the country of my heritage!) and bring a PATA delegation. My warm congratulations to Julia, Secretary Bernadette, and their teams on what looks like a spectacular event with great speakers. I caught many parts of it virtually and enjoyed participating in the “Reinvesting with Purpose” panel moderated by a dear friend Sharanjit Leyl and joined by fellow panellists Pansy Ho and Darryl Wade. Thank you to SKIFT for capturing some of my panel comments in this article issued the next day: Asia Tourism CEO Offers 3 Ways to Invest for A Green Recovery
PATA CEO, Liz Ortiguera, at the WTTC Global Summit- “Reinvesting with Purpose“.
Top L/R: Pansy Ho, Co-chairperson and Executive Director, MGM China Holdings Limited; Sharanjit Leyl, International News Journalist
Bottom L/R: Darrell Wade, Chairman, Intrepid Group; Liz Ortiguera, CEO, PATA
While my journey this month was initially triggered by a personal event, I've taken great opportunity to make some PATA rounds building on our East-West connections including:
Attending a reception with leaders/members of the San Diego PATA Chapter
Speaking at AHLA's Forward Event in Chicago featuring Women Leaders in Hospitality
And most recently, just today, meeting with the new NY Chapter Board members
Kudos to the Chapters like these around the world that advocate for Asia-Pacific travel and keep the global PATA community strong. I look forward to strengthening our network ties across the globe.
PATA CEO, Liz Ortiguera at the AHLA ForWard Annual Meeting, Chicago.
In addition to these face to face events, the past two weeks also involved a full round of annual PATA meetings (Executive Board and our open AGM for all members). This gave me an opportunity to update our progress since I joined almost exactly a year ago and get endorsement for our key initiatives moving forward.
As I shared during the Annual General Meeting, Asia-Pacific as a region has been the most impacted of all regions. Our region as a whole was impacted with a 90% drop in visitor arrivals last year versus 2019 levels. We’re forecasting only a return of 36% in IVAs (international visitor arrivals) for this year.
But I’m confident that this is the dawn of a new era for PATA and Asia-Pacific Travel. The future is bright:
As travel recovers, we will get our small businesses restarting, returning and new ones being spawned. I'm in regular discussions with MNCs, development banks and consultancies who are all keen to support the enablement of micro and small businesses in travel - particularly women-led since they're the most impacted and vulnerable. PATA is in active discussions on opportunities to collaborate and expand on programmes like the informal workers pilot support project and others. Within our member base, we're creating more opportunities for you to communicate your value, network with industry colleagues and tap into our collective expertise through shared research, webinars and thought leadership articles.
The Rise of the Conscious Traveller - the Economist Impact and Airbnb issued a report recently about the rise of “The Conscious Traveller”. There’s a recognition and appreciation by consumers for more socially conscious travel by the post-pandemic consumer, particularly within the Asia-Pacific region. 87% said doing more conscious travel is important to them. 57% said they would factor sustainable tourism practices into their next holiday. PATA has on offer online training on destination resilience and we continue to fully advocate sustainable travel solutions. With this trend comes the development of new destinations with better dispersion of travel volumes and broader economic inclusion.
And last but not least, let’s not forget that pre-pandemic, Asia-Pacific with its rising economies and some of the most populous countries globally was and will continue to be the growth engine for travel moving into the future. The onus is now on us to steer its continued development into positive and sustainable growth for the next generation.
I'll end by sharing with you a peek at the first page of our new Recovery Dashboard - PATA International Members can get a weekly synopsis of the reopening status and latest news from destinations across our region….
