PATA will be hiring a regional director Asia, and a director marketing membership. The hires for the newly-created positions will have their jobs cut out for them, as the Bangkok-based organisation seeks to grow revenue by 13 per cent this year, increase the number of chapters from 38 to 50 by 2012, re-engage members and communicate its new value.

The move is one of many tasks confronting PATA, which has not even found a CEO, but has unveiled a broad-based Future Strategic Focus designed to make its brand mean something again.

PATA’s interim CEO, Bill Calderwood, in an interview with TTG Asia e-Daily, said he would be working with the PATA team and board to come up with an 18-month business plan based on the new strategic focus.

He said he would count his six-month interim PATA stint ending in September a success if he had re-stabilised the team and established a clear culture in the organisation – “one that focuses on delivering things which build business”; created a structure that connects PATA with members’ chapters; rebuilt the brand; and created a sustainable programme and financial structure for PATA.

When asked what he needed to make progress with PATA, Calderwood said the challenges were not insurmountable. He called on members to stop dwelling on the past and get on with the task at hand.

“The challenges of an industry association is not unique to PATA. Every association has to keep working out where its potential is to add value,” he said.

“There have been a lot of discussions about PATA in recent years, all sorts of concerns and criticisms, some of them valid. But there has always been the recognition that PATA provided great value in the past and can continue to deliver value, with a clear vision and plan of action.”

He added that membership could be expected to be “tapped to work” again, as “the management team needs support, not just in words, but in deeds”.

The spirit of volunteerism was a strong pillar of PATA.

PATA’s Future Strategic Focus looked at changes in the operating environment, such as the digital revolution, rise of regional tourism NTOs and increasing need for effective advocacy, and addressed how PATA needed to retool its role and value.

– Full report in TTG Asia, April 29 issue

PATA’s immediate priorities were the focus of debate at yesterday’s Industry Council meeting, with several members expressing concern over the re-activation of the grassroots Chapter programme, as well as hopes of the association expanding its role in advocacy, information sharing and networking.

With PATA now trying to revive its Chapter programme, Lao National Institute of Tourism and Hospitality chief technical advisor Peter Semone said it felt like the association was “going forward to the past”, while Singapore-based World Express Group chairman Tan Chee Chye was skeptical about the cost of trying to bring it back.

The restructuring of PATA in recent times had seen a three-year Chapter Integration Plan that aimed to have all Chapter-only members upgraded to full PATA membership by 2007. With many unwilling to increase their level of commitment, this led to an exodus, causing the number of Chapters to dwindle by about half to its current 38-strong network.

Semone worried that Chapter membership would end up “dissolving” full PATA membership, with large numbers “hiding in the Chapters and being distantly involved” with PATA due to their reluctance to participate internationally.

Earlier in the meeting, other council members such as Marriott International chief operations officer, Asia Pacific, Craig Smith, had already pointed out that PATA needed to work on building a stronger membership base, with the lack of major industry players currently limiting networking opportunities.

PATA was also urged by members to step up in its lobbying of governments, removing barriers to destinations such as visas.

Industry Council chairman and Thailand-based Asian Trails Group CEO, Luzi Matzig, reiterated that PATA would take all the aforementioned into account, with key priorities being membership growth and renewal; restarting the chapter network while still encouraging some to become full members; getting relevant information to members; and lobbying.

CHINA is planning to launch a space theme park in Hainan province, as it is clear that ground-based space tourism and not space travel itself is the immediate opportunity for the industry, according to this morning’s keynote lift-off at PATA’s 60th Anniversary & Conference.

Yu Dengyun, deputy director general, Committee of Science and Technology, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, said: “I dare not forecast when the first Chinese tourist will be able to go into space. Maybe we should start thinking about ground-based space facility tourism first,” he said.

The theme park will give people the opportunity to visit space shuttle launch pads and other ground facilities, watch the launch of space aircraft, and experience what it is like to be on the moon and Mars. “The experience will be very different to watching it on television,” Yu said.

Space travel will eventually become “as common as a car drive” with advances in technology, but for now and the forseeable future, it is strictly a luxury limited to those able to afford the astronomical fees.

Conference keynote speaker Eric Anderson, chairman and co-founder of Space Adventures – which sent the first tourist into space in 2001 – said: “It has been 50 years since the first human successfully went into space orbit. Only about 500 people have visited space in this 50-year period. This is fewer than the number of billionaires in the world.”

While hoping to eventually expand space tourism to the masses, Anderson admitted that the cost of space travel had tripled from about US$20 million per person per trip 10 years ago to close to US$60 million today, not taking into account the cost of travel insurance – a couple of per cent of the princely sum.

Even the next best alternative, sub-orbital flights which only take 1/100th of the energy required to reach orbit, and give passengers the opportunity to experience floating weightless in a zero gravity environment for two-to-three minutes at a time, cost US$100,000 to US$200,000 per person per trip, according to Anderson.

Anderson said he was planning to introduce a lottery to give people who would not normally be able to afford space travel the chance to head into space. “It is a way of democratising space travel.”

Anderson said: “Ground-based space tourism is a market with big potential. The most-visited museum in the world is the Smithsonian National Air and Space museum in Washington.”

WELCOME banquets of PATA conferences in the past were events to look forward to. Usually, they were held in venues that were only possible only if real strings were pulled. Why, I remember the first PATA conference in Beijing in 1997; as one of our night-outs, we were guests of the Mayor of Beijing and were treated to a formal banquet in the Great Hall of the People, followed by a visit to Chairman Mao’s offices above the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which looked down on Tiananmen Square.

But last night’s PATA 60th Anniversary & Conference Welcome Banquet showed how times had changed. Not only was it held just in a mere hotel ballroom, one of the main acts was by a group of elderly dancing ladies whose average age must be 60 years.

Don’t get me wrong – they were adorable, fun and entertaining – but as I watched them and looked around, I wondered if the entertainment was being pitched to the average age of the PATA attendee. Or may be a literal way of celebrating PATA’s 6oth anniversary? Or may be a way to acknowledge an important travel market, ie, seniors?

The elderly dancing ladies were followed by a choir by children. I thought, aha, surely the middle segment would follow next? Alas, the only adult entertainment that ensued were grave speeches.

That’s when I decided to hit the bar. Some things do not change.

By Adam Tan