A Positive Future Ahead
PATA CEO Liz Ortiguera shared a message with the PATA community on Mar 25, 2022, with updates about some positive progress in the tourism industry’s recovery. The full message has been reposted below:
Dear PATA Members and Industry Colleagues,
I'll first take a moment to profile two projects that we're particularly proud of this month. Congratulations to ADB on their launch of the Southeast Asia Sustainable Tourism Hub launched at SEADS 2022 SEA Tourism Hub. PATA was a proud knowledge partner for this initiative contributing to the creation of this resource. ADB set up the Southeast Asia Sustainable Tourism Hub to help countries develop and finance innovative tourism projects, build destination management capacity, and provide knowledge solutions that align with the ADB Strategy 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Second, we were proud to deliver on our pilot outreach programme for the Informal Tourism Workers Support Project in Thailand. These low income workers are critical beneficiaries in the growth of travel - but were the first impacted and hardest hit by the pandemic. Our outreach programme reached drivers, vendors, tour guides and hostel workers -who are disproportionately women working in low income jobs. With our outreach programme we were able to deliver training on critical health and safety skills as well as modern business skills. The programme covered: properly wearing a mask, doing an antigen test, acceptance of online payments, and using digital mobile tools to name a few topics. This programme is much-needed all across our region - supporting the segment of travel workers that needs it most. We would welcome sponsors/partners to expand it further across the region.
The past few weeks have seen an encouraging number of breakthroughs and steps forward in the recovery with policies getting relaxed and openings announced across Asia-Pacific. We're all encouraged by the announcement made by the Singapore Government held yesterday relaxing a number of the travel and social restrictions in place for the pandemic. <add link> These strict protocols over the past two years, while onerous to some, laid a great foundation for what we hope will be a continued, sustained recovery moving forward.
With the rapidly evolving news, even when good, it's still not easy to plan and predict how the recovery will evolve. One of my recent meetings involved a Recovery Task Force discussion with the General Managers of a few large TMC/Agency PATA members. During this session they shared their current challenges and needs with the reopening of travel. Given all the uncertainties, one expressed a wish to have a "crystal ball" to foresee how travel will reopen. We all agreed around the table. I reflected on this need and realised - this is exactly what we are trying to deliver as PATA. Except instead of one clear crystal ball, we all need to piece together our own views to the future from a multitude of sources. And do that frequently as the pandemic status, government policies, consumer sentiment and the war in Ukraine and other factors evolve.
On Tues afternoon we held an Innovation webinar with Euromonitor and next Wed is scheduled our next Government Members' Destination Recovery session with World Bank on the topic of “Impact of the Ukraine/Russia Crisis on Travel and Tourism in Asia Pacific". And as highlighted in Skift, we issued our most current view to international visitor arrivals forecasted for the next two years. All of these are pieces of a crystal ball or small crystal balls that give fragments of insight into the near future. We'll continue to work hard to give you as many glimpses into the positive future and opportunities to support your recovery moving forward.
Lastly, my big thanks to all of my Women Travel Leader friends from across the region and around the world who supported our month-long International Women's Day campaign. There was a resounding interest from them to give advice and support to the next generation of leaders. Watch the recording of our Women's Day event here.
