PATA Travel Mart: Right country, right time

The TravelMole Interview: Sheila Leong, PATA

Sheila Leong: We’ve now received over 300 seller organisation registrations and at least 250 buyer delegates are heading to Hangzhou. These numbers are above our mid-year internal target.

Our stretch targets are being defined as we respond to your interview but it clear that sellers and buyers STILL value the opportunities presented by the exceptional B2B contracting and networking platform that is offered by PATA Travel Mart to them.

While we are content with our seller and buyer registrations thus far we are still actively continuing to promote the USPs of PTM and our host destination.

China is ranked as the fifth strongest source market globally (when measured by tourism-related expenditure) by UNWTO.There’s no doubt that we’re in the right country at the right time this year – and we’re enjoying fantastic support from our hosts Hangzhou Tourism Commission and the Hangzhou People’s Municipal Government of China (PRC).

Is there any indication than rather than run for cover during tough times, the industry feels personal contact and being seen at shows such as PATAMart assumes extra importance?

SL: We know, from our market research and member feedback, that the travel industry still places high value on meaningful direct buyer-seller contact. Some have cited the following advantages of face-to-face meetings at trade shows such as PATA Travel Mart:

– be engaged and to observe behavioural styles

– participate in ‘real time’ discussions

– provide human contact

– develop important relationships (transparency and trust)

– better understanding about business negotiations
How many news exhibitors do you have this year and where are some of the new ones from?
 

SL:We now have some 40 seller organisations that are participating PTM for the first time. Most of these sellers are from Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Macau.

The majority are independent hotels and DMC tour operators.

Interestingly, Marshall Islands Visitor Authority from South Pacific is also participating at PTM this year for the first time.

SL:We’ve introduced seller and buyer appointment requests online and we’ve bar coded delegate badges for the first time to give us much better crowd control and security in Hangzhou.

UNWTO is organising the 5th International Conference on ‘Destination Management’ in Hangzhou at one of PTM2009 official hotels, the Zhejiang Narada Grand Hotel, on September 21-22.

The theme of the conference is ‘Weathering the Storm of Global Recession: The Challenge for Destination Management’ and it is organised by UNWTO in collaboration with China National Tourism Administration with full support from the People’s Municipal Government of Hangzhou and PATA.
This conference aims to bring together representatives from the national tourist offices (NTOs), regional and local tourism state destinations, private sector companies and academia from all over the world.

They will identify the main challenges for tourism destinations in the face of the global economic downturn and to acquire an overview of the measures and policy actions to mitigate the negative impact through different illustrative best case studies.

All PTM2009 registered delegates and PATA members may attend this conference for free.

UNWTO conference delegates are invited to join the PTM2009 welcome reception hosted by the People’s Municipal Government of Hangzhou on September 22 (Tue) evening at the People’s Hall of Zhejiang Province and visit PTM2009 at the World Trade Center Zhejiang on September 23 (Wed).

There are two trade shows PATAMart and ITB Asia within a month of each other – is there room for both?

SL: PATA Travel Mart focuses mainly upon inbound traffic to our region and intra-regional travel. We deploy a sophisticated system of pre-arranged business appointments whereby buyers and sellers are carefully 100 percent pre-matched to a packed business calendar comprising 38 appointments.
We also provide all sellers and buyers with a holistic social programme that includes spectacular dinners each evening and luncheon seminars to take full advantage of PATA’s market intelligence sharing.

One of the many USPs of PTM is its annual venue rotation, thus refreshing buyer interest and fully engaging a new host destination seller market each year.

ITB Asia’s focus is primarily on Asian outbound and the convention business and is anchored, at least for now, in Singapore.

Of course there a degree of competition between the two events – but we believe the nature and focus of the ITB Asia show is distinctly different from the PATA Travel Mart.