PATA 60th Anniversary and Conference

April 9 - 12, 2011

China World Hotel

Beijing, China

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Azran Osman-Rani

CEO AirAsia X

“China remains the fastest growing market in the region for air transport. Not only because of a growing number of Chinese travellers venturing abroad, but also because of a very sustained demand from Asian travellers to come into the country. I am always impressed by the Chinese government commitment to improve infrastructure; with its new airports, highways, bullet trains, this country is changing at very high speed.”

Dr Dai Bin

President, China Tourism Academy

“Space tourism is a distant topic for most Chinese. In my village for example, 90% of the people have never been more than 100-kilometres away from their homes.”

David Scowsill

President and CEO, WTTC

“PATA must help in getting our industry united and talking to each other, to free us up from some of the barriers put in place by some governments. Tourism represents on average nine per cent of the world GDP. This is more than the automotive industry. Let’s beat the drums together to show our importance.”

Ding Xiangyang
Vice mayor, Beijing Municipality

“We must learn from other sophisticated metropolises such as Paris or New York to understand how they became successful destinations. We want to have greater exchanges with those cities and set international cooperation to improve our tourism resources. We are also thinking of establishing Beijing Tourism promotion agencies in Hong Kong, New York and Paris, which would give us a network of representations in all major world cities.”

Marcio Favilla Lucca de Paula

Executive director, external relations and partnerships, UNWTO

“A couple of years ago, emerging nations generated only 30% of total arrivals to the region. Today, their market share represents 53% of the total.

We must look more closely at domestic tourism. In 2008/09 during the financial crisis, domestic tourism became suddenly very visible for its economic importance and showed a strong growth due to a growing middle class.”

Mridu Sahgal

'Tomorrow Tourism' contest finalist from the Heritage Institute of Hotel and Tourism, Agra

“People are exploiting rather than cultivating resources. It is very much a short-term vision.; we should look for a system where we can promote tourism while preserving our resources at the same time.”

Nigel Coventry

Managing editor, South Pacific Media Services Ltd, New Zealand

"It was good to get back to a PATA conference, as such events provide me with access to the latest top-line thinking on travel and tourism, while renewing vital contacts. The programme was spread over barely two days, which meant I was able to digest many of the opinions quite easily. Conferences that are longer sometimes just become a mental blur."

Anil Mathur

Freelance journalist

New Delhi, India

“The event was most welcome after such a long gap, and should be sustained. However, there should be a greater thought on long-term gain, both for the delegates and the industry as such.”

Arup Sen

Director—Special Projects, Cox and Kings Ltd

India

"I congratulate the PATA management for putting up one of the most memorable PATA conferences, as mentioned in one of the sessions. The sessions were most intellectually rewarding and the evenings spectacular, as is the city of Beijing.’’