Five key challenges for the travel & tourism industry: PATA Chair

Pacific Asia Travel Asso­ci­ation (PATA) Chair Peter Semone iden­ti­fied five key chal­lenges for the travel & tour­ism industry dur­ing a media brief­ing on the eve of PATA Travel Mart 2024:

Crises of all sorts

“There will be more crises,’ Mr Semone said. “Health crises, nat­ur­al dis­asters, and polit­ic­al unrest. They all affect tourism. 

“Remem­ber, tour­ism is argu­ably the only export product in which the pur­chaser has to con­sume the product at the point of pro­duc­tion. Most oth­er export products can be packed onto a con­tain­er and delivered to the purchaser. 

“PATA is help­ing our mem­bers to improve their resi­li­ence through our Des­tin­a­tion Resi­li­ence Training.”

Tourism’s invisible burdens

With the “threat of over­tour­ism” and the “invis­ible bur­dens of tour­ism” mak­ing them­selves known, “the days of ‘gre­en­wash­ing’ are near­ing an end,” the PATA Chair asserted. 

“The trend of con­sumers demand­ing improved sus­tain­ab­il­ity will con­tin­ue. Power has shif­ted to trav­el­lers, who can now share opin­ions with a glob­al audi­ence before, dur­ing, and after a trip, influ­en­cing the choices that future con­sumers will make. 

“Booking.com now shows third-party sus­tain­ab­il­ity cer­ti­fic­a­tions (Green Des­tin­a­tions, Travel Life, etc). In a sur­vey of 29,000 trav­el­lers, half believe there are not enough sus­tain­able tour­ism options. 

“The tour­ism sec­tor also accounts for 10.6% of glob­al energy con­sump­tion due to con­tin­ued reli­ance on fossil fuel trans­port­a­tion, par­tic­u­larly by the avi­ation industry. 

“Look­ing ahead, redu­cing this energy foot­print will require both new sources of energy (sub­sti­tut­ing oil-derived fuel sources with more sus­tain­able fuels and elec­tri­city) as well as fur­ther reduc­tions in energy [use].”

For accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders, Mr Semone encour­aged loc­al efforts and incent­ives to help them ret­ro­fit their facilities. 

“Small Island Devel­op­ing States and coastal tour­ism des­tin­a­tions across our region recog­nise that cli­mate change is real. The time to act is now!”

Digitalisation

Mr Semone said that the “over­whelm­ing speed” of digit­al­isa­tion is grow­ing the divide between the haves and have-nots. Lar­ger gaps are form­ing which will exacer­bate poverty.

Regional conflicts

Mr Semone iden­ti­fied “region­al con­flicts in the Middle East and Europe, and threats in parts of Asia” as fur­ther cause for concern. 

“PATA was foun­ded to make a dif­fer­ence after one of the world’s most severe wars. So at PATA we under­stand that war is an exist­en­tial threat; that peace is a pre­requis­ite to sus­tain­able tour­ism. ‘War has no win­ners and peace, no losers.’”

Human capital

“People and tal­ent are a cent­ral driver for tour­ism devel­op­ment, a facil­it­at­or of growth, and a source of competitiveness. 

“Gov­ern­ments are increas­ingly pri­or­it­ising human cap­it­al and train­ing to the same degree as mar­ket­ing and infrastructure. 

“Tal­ent and skills gaps, where pos­i­tions are filled by under-qual­i­fied and under-exper­i­enced staff, lead to inferi­or cus­tom­er ser­vice and qual­ity stand­ards, which can res­ult in low levels of cus­tom­er sat­is­fac­tion and loyalty.”

“GT” Pub­lish­er Dav­id Gill­banks is attend­ing PATA Travel Mart 2024 as a media delegate.

Featured image (top of post)

PATA Chair Peter Semone (left) sits next to PATA CEO Noor Ahmad Ham­id at a media brief­ing hos­ted at the For­eign Cor­res­pond­ents Club of Thai­l­and in Bangkok, Thai­l­and on the eve of PATA Travel Mart 2024, August 27. Pic by Dav­id Gillbanks.