Tag Archives: PATA

Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA, said that there is a need for health passports, across the world, and that vaccination is not the only solution for travel recovery. “Health passports are not only about vaccination. Vaccination is not the only solution for travel recovery. Testing is also here to stay. It’s the combination of both—having the vaccine, having a way or mechanism to be able to track who is being vaccinated, when have you been vaccinated, what type of vaccine you’ve received etc. and the same things with testing. This is where the health pass is becoming critical for trans-border travel in the future. It’s important that moving forward, we have one standard protocols across the world for accepting testing.”

Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA, has said that it is the importance of resilience that will be the biggest take away from 2020.  “We have always been told in the past to have a financial reserve personally as well as for the business, and till 10 years ago people said that thus one needs to save as reserve for 3 months, which later became 6 months, and then one year. However, in the current situation, one probably needs several years of reserve, to be able to sustain this type of crisis we are facing today. At PATA, we are very fortunate that we built a very strong reserve for the last couple of years, which allows us to sustain this crisis and for the foreseeable future. 2020 highlighted which I already knew and highlighted the importance of saving, to prepare us to be more resilient in the future because sadly this is not the only crisis we will be facing in years to come, but certainly it is the largest I have ever experienced in my life so far,” he added.

The first Virtual PATA Travel Mart (PTM) 2020 opened to a massive number of attendees. Addressing them through a virtual message, Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA, said, “Virtual PTM is the perfect place to begin, with Asia Pacific predicted to be the leading force of global tourism recovery from COVID-19, as both inbound destinations as well as robust source markets. As PATA acts as a catalyst for the responsible tourism development to, from and within the Asia Pacific region, we understand that both the public and private sectors must work together in order to build a more resilient, responsible and sustainable global travel and tourism industry, and hopefully Virtual PTM provides such a platform for the industry. In addition, there are buyer-seller meetings where I encourage delegates to take part in various networking opportunities. One can gain further insights into the travel and tourism industry during the PTM forums, quick-fire presentations and group chats. At the 2020 PATA Gold Awards Presentation, we will celebrate, recognise and support outstanding achievements in Asia Pacific travel and tourism.”

Dr Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA, has said that, while travel bubbles and green corridors are a great idea, but there is a lot of complexity involved in setting them up. “It is not a simple task. There are bilateral agreements involved between the two countries. It’s not only the immigration department involved but also health departments and ministries of health of the respective destinations. However, the countries need to agree to have enough trust in the healthcare system of the respective destinations to allow people to travel across their borders.”

The average lead time, i.e. the number of days between booking date and travel date (how far in advance travellers book their trips), for long- haul travel to South Asia is 73 days, according to ForwardKeys.

Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA, has said that travel will never be the same after the COVID crisis. “Some of the protocols that have been devised for travelling now, will not be limited through the crisis, but will carry on afterward as well,” he said while speaking at the PATA India Chapter’s webinar titled ‘Tourism the economic PowerHouse in an evolving landscape’.

PATA India Chapter is all set to conduct its next informative webinar ‘Tourism the economic PowerHouse in an evolving landscape’ will have international speakers –Dr. Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA and Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys. The webinar is aimed at offering a global perspective on the evolution of tourism policy being adopted by various countries, as well as, an analytical view on the reorganisation of global tourism with focus on India & South Asia, Emerging Trends, future opportunities, the new normal business practices and source markets efforts to inspire travellers’ confidence. The webinar promises to be engaging, educational and practical from the perspective of travel professionals and tourism industry stakeholders.

Meenakshi Sharma, Director General, Tourism, has said that in a bid to create assurance to the foreign travellers to visit India in future, while they are working with various ministries, MOT is also looking at bringing some kind of insurance to be a part of this exercise. For this, she says the MOT is mulling over it internally and would like to take suggestions from the travel trade for the same. She was speaking at the 9th Update and Outlook Meeting by PATA India Chapter, themed, ‘Resurrecting Inbound Tourism post COVID 19’.

Having updated its event calendar for 2020-2021, PATA has announced that the upcoming PATA Travel Mart 2020, originally to be held in Leshan, Sichuan, China from September 3-6, will now be organised as a virtual event in late September of this year. The event, held in in conjunction with the Sichuan International Tourism Expo and with the support of the Leshan Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau, will include webinars, virtual exhibition space and one-on-one virtual meetings.

According to a newly updated forecast by Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), growth in international arrivals relative to 2019 figures is expected to rebound the fastest in Asia over the years to 2024. The release also suggests that this growth will be driven by intra-regional travel (Asia-to-Asia), with a rebound from a loss of almost 98 million arrivals between 2019 and 2020 to an increase of over 17 million between 2019 and 2021. All the source regions of Asia are projected to show growth between 2019 and 2021, with Europe and the Americas in particular, adding increases in arrivals of 2.5 million and 1.7 million, respectively over that period. By the end of 2021, Asia is predicted to have visitor arrivals numbering five per cent more than in 2019.