PATA goes for a clean sheet

BANGKOK, 5 September 2011 – Heavy-duty restructuring is under way at the Pacific Asia Travel Association as it prepares to “start off with a clean slate” before the announcement of a new CEO at the annual PATA Travel Mart in New Delhi next week.

Three of its regional directors in Europe and North America will not have their contracts renewed as of October, two staff in the Strategic Intelligence Centre have been “restructured” as of last month and five staff moved to the newly established marketing and membership services unit.

Two of PATA’s key membership-service functions –research/intelligence and events – are to be outsourced as of October to two companies to be set up by the two people who presently head these units within PATA itself, respectively John Koldowski and Sheila Leong. Read more

Indigo promises hassle free flying

BANGKOK, 22 August 2011 – Exactly five years after it began flying in India, IndiGo is set to become the first Indian low-cost airline to launch international routes with flights to Bangkok as well as Dubai and Singapore next month.

Its daily flights from Delhi and India, for a total of 14 a week, will add to the 141 direct weekly services between Bangkok and major Indian cities now being operated by Air India, Air Asia, Bangkok Airways, Cathay Pacific, Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Philippine Airlines, Royal Bhutan Airlines and Thai Airways International.

These airlines collectively link Thailand to Delhi (51 flights / week), Mumbai (49), Kolkata (28), Chennai (7) Hyderabad (4) and Gauhati (2). Read more

What goes round comes round

BANGKOK, 15 August 2011 – In what one Israeli publication described as a turning of the tables, riot-hit UK last week found itself at the receiving end of both travel alerts and travel warnings as well as some finger-wagging lectures from its former colonial outposts.

The riots came on the day England and India faced off in the third cricket Test in Edgbaston. Indian media quoted former Indian cricket captain Sunil Gavaskar as saying that England’s cricketers would have “hit the panic button” and talked of leaving the series midway if the UK riots had happened in India.

Gavaskar said such a situation in India would have evoked reactions of wanting to leave by English cricketers. “No question about it, they would have been pressing the panic button. They would have been talking in terms of the team returning home. That is a given,” Gavaskar said. Read more

PATA’s haste might make waste

BANGKOK, 8 August 2011 – In a surprise move, the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association, last week, announced that it would outsource its most important core function — providing membership with industry research, data and intelligence.

Negotiations are under way to finalise the terms of the contract under which Mr John Koldowski, currently the Head of the Office of Strategy Management (OSM), will leave PATA in a few months to set up his company and provide the same services to PATA under an external arrangement.

The move has been packaged as part of a “new business model” for PATA, now undergoing some heavy-duty restructuring as part of the new “building the business” management philosophy. However, it is also being driven for cost reasons as PATA struggles to survive after years of losing both relevance and membership. Read more

Norwegian terror highlights racial profiling

BANGKOK, 1 August 2011 — Outraged by the finger-pointing that proved to be entirely false in the aftermath of the 22/7 terrorist attack in Norway, the Islamic world is mobilising to counter rampant discrimination and profiling that has so far gone almost unchecked in the travel chain.

Ever since 9/11, Muslims and those mistaken to be Muslims have faced extensive problems, from racial profiling at airports to special scrutiny of visa applications. So far, there has been no recourse to seek accountability, and no channels through which to do so. That is set to change.

Numerous Islamic organisations and travel industry associations are beginning to monitor discrimination more closely in preparation to take name-and-shame actions, both legally and via the media, against countries and companies that ignore Islamophobia in the travel sector, workplaces, schools, etc. Read more

PATA: Senior posts go to westerners

BANGKOK 25 July 2011 – The Pacific Asia Travel Association, last week, took a step forward in its recovery and rehabilitation campaign by appointing two senior-management executives to help revive its profile in the Asian region and rebuild its membership base.

But the appointment of two Thailand-based expatriates, Stu Lloyd as Senior Director – marketing and membership services and Reid Ridgway as regional director – Asia, has done little to enhance the organisation’s over-arching objective to position itself as the “voice of Asia-Pacific travel & tourism”.

Although the organisation, under the temporary stewardship of Interim CEO Bill Calderwood, a former deputy MD of the Australian Tourist Commission, recently has taken two steps forward by unveiling a grand strategy to address its many internal and external challenges, it has taken one step backward by not filling even one of the two positions with a born-and-bred Asian. Read more

IT industry curtails travel habit

BANGKOK 20 July 2011 – For the first time, the Information and Communications Technologies sector has been given an official mandate to start exploring ways to help save the environment by promoting cutbacks in the travel and transportation sector.

The mandate, which could present significant problems especially for the economics of the traditional meetings and business travel sector, is contained in a report issued after the 6th International Telecommunications Union Symposium on ICTs, The Environment and Climate Change held in Accra, Ghana from 7 to 8 July, 2011.

The meeting was intended as a preparatory session for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference to be held in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 9 December 2011 and the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD 2012 or Rio+20) to be held in Rio de Janeiro from 4 June to 6 June 2012. Read more

US cities demand OTCs pay tax

BANGKOK, 27  June 2011 – Mayors of cities in the United States have passed a resolution that highlights alleged tax evasion by online travel companies (OTCs) and calls on the US Congress not to block legal action to get them to pay up.

The resolution claims that OTCs such as Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity, Orbiz and Hotels.com are collecting state and local hotel occupancy taxes from consumers, but only remitting a fraction of such taxes to state and local governments. It claims that the alleged evasion is costing a minimum of US$1 billion in lost taxes.

The resolution is one of 114 approved by the annual US Conference of Mayors held in Baltimore between 17 to 20 June. It comes within the broader context of frustration over the state of US cities, the need for billions of dollars to fix the problems and the funding shortages caused by the massive budgetary deficits. Read more

JNTO counts the cost of tsunami crisis

BANGKOK, 13 June 2011 — The first set of figures released after the tsunami-triggered Fukushima nuclear crisis show a 9% decline in outbound Japanese travellers in both March and April, and much higher levels of decline in inbound travellers. Both have had a huge impact on the commercial operations of both Japanese tour companies, travel agencies and hotels.

According to figures compiled by the Japan Tourism Marketing Company (JTMC), the number of Japanese overseas travellers in March 2011 was estimated at 1,732,000, down 12.2% over March 2010. Inbound arrivals in March are estimated at 353,000, (down 50%), and in April 295,800 (down 62.5%).

Read more

ICAO warned sanctions compromise safety

BANGKOK , 6 June 2011 – The global commercial aviation sector is being pressed to abide by its claimed commitment to safety by ending the economic sanctions that are affecting the safety levels of a number of commercial airlines.

A report issued after the first meeting of Directors General of Civil Aviation-Middle East Region in the UAE last March said, “With the goal to mitigate the negative safety impact of the financial sanctions against ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) Contracting States, the Meeting of Directors’ General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in the Middle East recommends that ICAO addresses the negative impact of sanctions to aviation safety as a serious concern.”

Emphasising that “the effects of embargoes should be looked at from a safety point of view and not from a political point of view,” the report says: “The meeting recommends that the ICAO Contracting States address this ban for the sake of the aviation safety as a whole.”

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