34 REGION ASIA Brought
34 REGION ASIA Brought to you by PATA WILL ALWAYS REMAIN A STRONG ADVOCATE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A RESPONSIBLE AND SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL AND TOURISM INDUSTRY Mario Hardy Chief Executive, Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) PATA Promotes Development of Responsible and Sustainable Travel In the past three years, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has focused on building a financially strong organisation, increasing the number of members globally and improving engagement with its members and partners. Dr. Mario Hardy, PATA’s Chief Executive, tells us what the future holds for the organisation. In the years to come, the Association will look to be thought leaders, by focusing on further engagement with its members by monitoring current trends and issues. However, PATA will always remain a strong advocate for the development of a responsible and sustainable travel and tourism industry. What are the key trends you’re seeing in Asian travel and tourism (inbound and outbound)? After having just met with ASEAN Tourism Ministers, I can safely say that an area of focus for most destinations is the issue of tourism dispersal. Many countries suffer from overcrowded tourist destinations and often times the infrastructure in place does not support these high number of tourists. Dispersing tourists to secondary and tertiary destinations will also help local communities alleviate poverty by generating new sources of income and creating new job opportunities. This is something that PATA has been advocating for the past three years and we are extremely pleased to see countries embracing this new philosophy. After the UNWTO’s Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, you are launching a new initiative. Please tell us more… We recently launched the Building an Understanding for Food Excess in Tourism (BUFFET) initiative, a campaign aimed at reducing food waste in our industry. This is an issue that everybody in the travel and tourism industry witnesses. When you go to any tradeshow, conference or hotel breakfast buffet, we can see the amount of food waste that usually goes to landfill which adversely affects our environment. On that same day you could walk out of your hotel and see people in desperate need of food. At PATA, we want to play our part and continue to work towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. With this campaign, PATA along with our partners will be working with hotels in Bangkok in reducing their food waste to landfill. The overall outcome of the campaign is to produce a research paper with case studies and best practices on eliminating food waste. The final report will be shared globally and hopefully be the start of a global movement. For more information about the BUFFET Initiative and how to get involved, visit www.PATA.org/foodwaste. What interesting new members have you landed of late? We value every member that joins the PATA family, however some of the more well-known brands that have recently joined include PayPal, Airbnb and Royal Brunei Airlines. In 2017, we welcomed more than 125 members from the public and private sectors to the Association. Much feared in its early days, how does Airbnb fit into the equation today? We can no longer ignore players such as Airbnb, which has had a tremendous impact on several destinations already. In some destinations it has helped boost the local economy, revived certain districts and added much needed inventory, while in others DISPERSING TOURISTS TO SECONDARY AND TERTIARY DESTINATIONS WILL HELP LOCAL COMMUNITIES ALLEVIATE POVERTY it has created challenges which is expected when new innovative services emerge. However, I believe overall it has had a positive effect on our sector ITB BERLIN NEWS • Thursday 8 th March 2018 www.itb-berlin-news.com
Brought to you by ASIA REGION 35 India To Promote Itself as Year-Round Destination In an exclusive with ITB Berlin News, India’s Minister of State for Tourism, KJ Alphons, said that the country is experiencing a boom in domestic and international tourism, with 10.2 million visitors received in 2017, up 15.6% on 2016. We started by asking him more about India’s tourism industry in 2017. India’s ranking in the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitive Index (TTCI) moved from 65th position in 2013 to 52nd position in 2015. In 2017, India moved up by another 12 positions and is ranked at 40th position. In all, in the past four years India has cumulatively improved its ranking by 25 places which is a significant achievement. How is the introduction of e-Visa affecting visitor numbers, and what are the next steps in easing entry for tourists? The introduction of e-visa has been the biggest game changer for the Indian Tourism Industry. This was first introduced in November 2014 for 43 countries. We now have a more liberalised e-visa regime in place. The window period for application under the e-visa scheme has been increased from 30 days to 120 days to allow tourists to plan their trip better. The stay duration has also been increased from 30 days to 60 days with double entry on e-tourist and e-business visas and triple entry on e-medical visas. This will bring cheer to citizens from 163 nations around the world planning to visit India. The e-visa facility now gives entry through 24 airports as well as five seaports (Cochin, Goa, Mangalore, Mumbai and Chennai) to tap cruise tourists from different countries. The requirement of holding bio-metric visas for cruise passengers in the five seaports has been deferred till 2020. How is the Ministry of Tourism working to develop infrastructure? The Ministry of Tourism is according priority for holistic development of tourism destinations into world class destinations using a cluster approach including development of infrastructure, amenities, interpretation centres and skill development by achieving synergy and convergence with other Central Ministries, State Governments and industry stakeholders. The Ministry of Tourism has recently launched the Adopt A Heritage project. Heritage sites are being offered for adoption by the public sector, private sector and individuals to become Monument Mitras for developing amenities and facilities at these sites under this programme. The “National Mission on Pilgrimage and Spiritual, Heritage Augmentation Drive” (PRASHAD) has been launched by the Ministry of Tourism with the objective of holistic development of 25 pilgrimage and heritage destinations. The Ministry of Tourism is also in the process of taking up a proposal for the grant of infrastructure status to investment in the hotel industry of more than 500 million rupees (€6.3 million) and in towns with less than 500,000 population. Which source markets are growing the fastest and which are the most interesting for you? India is primarily a long haul destination for many of its source markets. The USA has been consistently growing. The growth trends are also evident from Europe. We see a lot of potential for growth from the ASEAN region considering the proximity of the ASEAN countries to India and also due the common shared cultures between India and ASEAN. Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia and CIS countries and Latin American countries are other regions we propose to engage with in coming times. How important is ITB Berlin as a global platform for India? We see ITB Berlin as a platform to showcase the country’s tourism product to the global tourism community. This is evident from the fact that India is taking a large space for the India Pavilion in which over 50 co-exhibitors comprising tour operators, hoteliers etc. from different parts of India will participate. Additionally, over 25 Indian stakeholders are participating with booking space outside the India Pavilion. We will position India as a premium destination in all the growing segments, including religious, wellness tourism, adventure tourism, heritage sites and yoga KJ Alphons Minister of State for Tourism, India THE E-VISA FACILITY NOW GIVES ENTRY THROUGH 24 AIRPORTS AS WELL AS FIVE SEAPORTS ITB BERLIN NEWS • Thursday 8 th March 2018
