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Bali to host Travel Mart

PATA Travel Mart 2007 (PTM07) takes place September 25-28 in Bali, the “Island of Peace” and “Island of the Gods”.

Asia Pacific continues to enjoy rock solid year-to-date growth in arrivals of about 5% (so far) in 2006, and the region’s premier business-to-business travel trade event, PATA Travel Mart, is growing in tandem with it. PTM06 in Hong Kong celebrated record numbers - 417 buyer delegates met with 336 seller organizations.

PATA’s stringent buyer qualifying procedures deliver the right geographic and industry mix of quality buyers from key and emerging markets. This will be even further enhanced at PTM07.

PTM07 in Bali promises to reward everyone who is serious about Asia Pacific travel and tourism:
• More business appointments
• Additional networking opportunities
• Improved buyer-seller breakfast meet
• Insightful workshops
• Newsworthy media sessions
• Chance to rediscover Bali and Indonesia.

The top five winners

Travel and tourism arrivals across the Asia Pacific region expanded 4.5% in the first quarter of 2006 compared to first quarter 2005, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA)’s comprehensive and comparative listing of Asia Pacific destination performance. That translates into nearly 3.5 million more arrivals for Asia Pacific destinations, year-on-year.

PATA’s First Quarter 2006 Quarterly Statistical Report (QSR) shows which Asia Pacific destinations attracted the most increases in international visitor arrivals and from which source markets.

The top five origin-destination % growth performances for first quarter 2006 compared to first quarter 2005, (where passenger traffic was 25,000 or more) were:
1. Russian Federation to Thailand (+138.2%)
2. China (PRC) to Thailand (+131.8%)
3. Italy to the Maldives (+126.9%)
4. Korea (ROK) to Thailand (+89.7%)
5. China (PRC) to Philippines (+87.1%)
“Thailand clearly bounced back from the post-tsunami declines it suffered in the first three months of 2005,” said PATA Director-Strategic Intelligence Center John Koldowski.

330 million visit Asia Pacific in 2005

International visitor arrivals (IVAs) to Asia Pacific in 2005 numbered nearly 330 million trips, representing region-wide year-on-year growth of 7.6% and a new regional record. Since 2001, IVAs have grown at an average annual rate of 6%.

So reveals the PATA Annual Statistical Report 2005, the only publication that brings together Asia Pacific arrivals and departures statistics and other tourism-related data, such as length of stay, visitor expenditure, hotel occupancy rates, national tourism organization budgets and more.

PATA Go-Before held

PATA Go-Before was held for the fifth time in Munich on November 2. It was organized by PATA Bavaria Chapter, Germany. PATA Nepal Chapter coordinated Nepal's participation at the event.

Five companies - Dharma Adventures, The Malla Hotel, President Travels and Tours, Nepal Trailblazer Trekking and Himalaya Expeditions - participated along with the Nepal Tourism Board. Besides Nepal, other participating countries were the United Arab Emirates, India, Thailand, Vietnam and China.

Apart from the 600 travel agents from Germany and Austria, also attending the event were travel writers from various travel trade magazines and the local press.

China.travel launched

China.travel, a key component of the China Golden Journey Project, debuted at the China International Travel Mart (CITM) in Shanghai in November.

With the start up of China.travel, China becomes the second country to launch a .travel website after Canada. China.travel is an integrated platform of China's DMS (Destination Marketing System).

Its domains, www.china.travel and www.yahtour.com, release travel news and build an e-commerce platform for China's tourism industry.