The PATA Annual Summit (PAS) is finally back in-person in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE after a 3-year hiatus! The event, hosted by the Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA)  with support from Platinum Sponsor, the Azerbaijan Tourism Board; Destination Sustainability Leadership Forum Knowledge Partner, Mastercard; Workshop Sponsors, ForwardKeys and Quilt.AI, and Event Tech Partners, Cvent and the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB), welcomed delegates from 128 organisations in 36 destinations. PAS 2022 is the first of this annual event to be held in the Middle East and the 70th year since its first appearance in 1952.

The three-day event featured four breakout workshops, 16 main stage sessions, various destination tours, two mobile photography workshops, and a sustainability leadership forum that united 21 senior government and travel industry leaders from the public and private sectors in Asia and beyond for dialogues on unique approaches towards overcoming challenges and unlocking new opportunities as the world rebuilds towards a stronger tourism future.

Take a sneak peek at the key takeaways from PAS 2022 below.

Building a Sustainable and Responsible Destination:

Leaders from the Ministries of Tourism and Tourism Boards agreed that destinations have to progress with a new mindset and avoid falling back into old habits. Some initiatives include:

• Ensuring all government departments are working in unison together for tourism.

• Enhancing the liveability of a destination by ensuring satisfaction for both travellers and residents alike.

• Moving away from purely counting tourism’s economic impact and shifting towards quality-focused development

• Focusing on community-based tourism that is built on the careful calculation of cost and benefits.

In order to attain sustainable financing in making these necessary changes, destinations should utilise the strong power of online travel agents (OTAs) to collect funds from visitors automatically through the booking process and convert them into actual development funds, as tourists are willing to pay for sustainability. PATA CEO Liz Ortiguera is confident about the future of the industry as sustainable development has never been embraced by so many in the industry.  With this in mind, PATA’s role is to build a community that facilitates collaboration and insight exchange.

Public-private Partnerships (PPP) for Destination Sustainability:

Tourism should be seen as a partner in destination development with all other sectors. Al Merschen (Myriad) noted that PPPs have the capability to create products that can extend visitors’ length of stay for higher profit margins. PPPs also help encourage sustainable bookings in long-haul destinations where desire to travel often overrides visitors’ willingness to pay for sustainability. The collaboration between destination marketing/management organisations (DMOs), existing products, and OTAs create THE reason for consumers to opt for sustainable options. Eduardo Santander (European Tourism Commission) furthered the conversation by spotlighting the power of a few simple policy changes- even seasonality can be broken to attract more sustainable travellers and create a destination's visitor resilience.

Building Back Stronger with Resilience:

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) is an investment in reducing the cost of risks through understanding and the building of resilience. Jessie F. McComb (World Bank) named three keys to attaining resilience:

• Cross-governmental collaborations,

• Sufficient knowledge in building the business case, and

• Attracting business investments through government-financial institution collaborations.

Stephan Schipani (ADB) highlighted that micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) without access to data need government and private organisations to make available the information to adapt to changing demands in the markets as well as development training.

Human Capital in Travel and Tourism:

The industry is now in an urgent need to bring back talents in order to reopen with full potential. Youths are still keen to enter the industry but need to see the “mission and vision“ and the longevity of the career they are about to enter. Dr. Kaye Chon (SHTM PolyU) pointed out that the travel industry is no longer the only way to see the world. Chip Rogers (AHLA) and Stefano Baronci (Airport Council Asia Pacific) reminded delegates that employees need to be invested to show acknowledgement toward their value and that the concept of a people-centred business model should be at the forefront of human resource management. For educational institutions, Audra Morrice suggested the need to reexamine practicality in existing school courses to help students connect their learnings with their passion and the real world.

Trends in Short and Medium Haul Markets:

Olivier Ponti (Forwardkeys) shared with the audience that luxury travel is on the rise and economic impacts from tourists are stronger than pre-pandemic. A sentiment  echoed from the Chinese market perspective by Marcus Lee (China Travel Online). This represents an opportunity for sustainable bookings, but Fabrizio Orlando (Tripadvisor) reminded delegates that the industry needs to realise that sustainability should not equal higher price in order to address the gap between intention and actual behaviour. On the topic of exploring new opportunities in the market, Marcus identified the potential of family travel in China, while Olivier suggested that destinations should put more focus on sectors that have clear interest to their destinations.

The Global Hotel Industry:

Three key conversations in today’s hospitality industry: Bleisure/Blended Travel, human capital development, and sustainability.

• Bleisure/Blended Travel: Nearly 90% of business travellers want to add some leisure time to their next business trip, so hotels need to create a seamless digital environment to capture this opportunity.

• Human Capital Development: Employees no longer belong to one company - this creates an opportunity for hotels to cross train the workforce and relieve stress on human resources.

• Sustainability: The hospitality industry should create standards that all brands can meet and promote them as minimum standards to progress sustainability more efficiently.

Supporting women in MSMEs

Despite 54% of the travel workforce being comprised of women, managerial roles are still lacking much-needed gender equality. Ir. Martini M. Paham, M.B.A (Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Indonesia) and Noredah Othman (Sabah Tourism Board) emphasised the indispensability of access to knowledge, training, business digitalisation, and gender-specific financial services to support women in the industry. Andrew Chan (ACI HR Solutions) stressed that employers need to build an environment where women can be heard more easily and men are also actively included in the conversations.

Looking at the issue from another perspective, Leila Serhan (Visa) and Virgina Messina (WTTC) urged women to overcome gender-stereotyping of themselves, be more confident in themselves, and be proud to share their stories of success, noting that changes are still needed to encourage more to be done for gender equality.

Aviation Recovery and Sustainability:

Learning from the pandemic, Stefano Baronci noted the need for aviation businesses to minimise future crises by diversifying their portfolio, both market and customer, and a right value proposition for clear communication is needed. Mac Patel (OAG) pointed out the increasing importance of low-cost carriers as seen in the past two years in supporting global connections, highlighting that this symbiotic relationship requires multiple touch points from a destination management perspective.

Sustainability cannot be halted even during recovery. The most effective measure to decarbonising aviation is for the entire supply chain to work together to put global goals into national actions, as Haldane Dodd (ATAG) set forth in his presentation.  The industry has long embarked on its journey to reduce environmental impacts through new technologies, fuel and craft options, and advanced policies. All three experts asserted that aviation is a key pillar in allowing for the expanding of the world’s development towards a better direction, thus, synergy across associations and industries need to be reinforced to elevate the efforts in sustainability.

Branding Destination with Personality:

Rather than excessive and vague adjectives and slogans like“authentic” or “something for everyone”, destinations need to identify their own unique personality and define their audience beyond the conventional geographic and demographic features for maximum marketing results, Al Merschen (Myriad) remarked in his presentation. Photography and gastronomy are two influential tools in broadcasting a destination’s personality, as visitors can easily take part in the co-creation process that expands the scale of exposure.

Gastronomy is a way to tangiblise a destination’s culture and personality, while photography is the best way to tell this story to a wider audience. With their magnitude and multitude of experience, Scott A. Woodward and Audra Morrice underlined the need to encourage slow, mindful community-based tourism with integrated education for inspiring visitors to travel beyond the social influence and connect with the destination and its community deeper and more meaningfully.

Optimise Marketing Campaigns with Forward-looking Data- by ForwardKeys

Noticeable trends in Asia Pacific: 

1. Increased affluent travellers and opportunity for luxury travel: premium class travellers are leading the recovery. South Asian destinations such as Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Maldives are seeing high numbers of affluent visitor arrivals, benefitting from the multiplier effect of affluent travellers plus luxury travel.

2. Mid-long haul travel is reviving faster than short haul travel: short-haul travel is recovering slower due to a lack of connectivity, which will lead to a destination’s lost opportunity of longer stays and higher spending to transfer points - a critical bottleneck for APAC to recognise and address

3. Increased long-haul, multi-destination travel: markets near trending destinations (e.g. Japan, Qatar) will benefit from the trend. That said, APAC is capable of supporting its own recovery if disconnectivity has been ironed out.

By taking lessons from the US and Europe, APAC’s recovery can be quicker and of higher quality despite coming later than the rest of the world.

More insights available through ForwardKey’s Destination Gateway: a tool that democratises data within your organisation and helps you make data-driven decisions. PATA International Members can enjoy a 30% off discount. Learn more >

Travel Intelligence, powered by AI- by Quilt.AI

With their Artificial Intelligence tool in hand, Quilt.AI discovered three emerging trends in the Asia Pacific:

1. Impact tourism: Visitors are looking for experiences and options that will make their travel more meaningful by showing support. Travel businesses should align themselves as impact allies through creating positive economic and environmental impacts in their destinations.

2. Silver travel: People over 50 want to participate in adventures and meet new people on their travels. This trend indicated opportunities for intergeneration travels, on-the-road travels, and silver-community travels.

3. Globe-trotters: A rising segment seen among Chinese business travellers, these bleisure/ blended travellers are keen to explore the culture of the destinations just like other tourists.

The 52 speakers brought valuable insights and sparked constructive conversations at PAS 2022. From destination recovery and destination marketing, to aviation and hospitality trends and insights, the conference emphasised the importance of reconnecting the world to inspire, catalyse actions and create in-market impact.

Thank you to event sponsors, partners and delegates that made this event possible. See you all at our next event in Bangkok, Thailand our Asia-Pacific Travel Summit in partnership with GBTA happening Dec 8-9.

Check out event photos here > 

On-demand recordings are available at below pricing, contact Monica P. at Events@PATA.org to make a purchase.

• PAS 2022 Delegate: Complimentary

• PATA International Member: USD $50

• PATA Chapter member USD $75

• Non-Member USD $100

PATA is piloting a collaboration with METACARBON who uses blockchain-based responsible offsets, with an aim to spreading awareness about the regional endangered species. In association with PAS 2022, the species selected as a mascot is the Arabian Oryx- and endangered species saved from extinction through a captive breeding programme in the UAE. Special NFTs with retired carbon attached to it will be introduced as an award for purchasing offsets to your journey.

Let’s join hands to spread awareness about Arabian Oryx and start our journey towards carbon neutral events. Purchase NFT to help fight climate change >