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October 2002 |
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Mirror on Macau - Macau is a real success story |
Peter de Jong, President and CEO of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), was in town briefly in September to attend some of the Tourism Week activities. While here, he met and talked with Chief Executive Edmund Ho and Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Dr. Chui Sai On, as well as MGTO officials and overseas representatives. Macau Travel Talk caught up with Mr. de Jong to hear some of his views just before he headed out on a sightseeing tour of the city.
You said earlier that Macau had changed and PATA had changed during the past few years. What sort of changes did you mean?
The industry has changed. We've had to become more agile to adjust to the changes in, for example, the degree of sophistication that destinations in our region have attained. They are reaching the market through new kinds of communications and doing it well, better than we could have done it before.
So now we are looked on by those more developed destinations much more as an intelligence unit, as an organization that crunches numbers, analyzes data, and forecasts trends as well as, for instance, assists with human resources development. We've become much more of a knowledge-based society, and we've becoming more of a knowledge-based, technology transfer type organization.
That is, as opposed to the more traditional role of, say, organizing trade fairs. We still do that, but while travel trade fairs will still be around, travel industry dollars are shrinking, so I think destinations and other sellers are forced to make harder choices as to which fairs they will attend.
I think the more marketing and selling role that PATA performed so well for so many years, and still does, is going to be slowly and surely not replaced by, but accompanied by more of an intelligence function. And I think that's dramatically important, because, for example, one of the things that Macau will be dealing with for certain, is how to ensure quality while dealing with growth.
So in that sense, PATA needs to do a re-think as to re-engineering itself and the priorities that it wishes to address in the next ten to fifteen years.
The other thing we're doing that goes back to the traditional role of marketing the product is to begin to see other distribution vehicles through the internet as very important ones.
What are your views on the Macau-PATA partnership right now?
I think Macau is a real success story. The Macau-PATA relationship has been truly successful, and I don't know any other destinations that have done as much mutually beneficial and mutually productive relationship-building as PATA and Macau. Macau stands out as just having made the right choices. It embraced its heritage preservation 15 years ago and look what it's achieved. It has a special relationship that it's developed with its "big neighbor" that is now its motherland.
Macau helps PATA get the word out about its work by MGTO's major sponsorship of the Gold Awards. It's made very good use of our task forces over the years, with very pointed, very specific works on tourism. And a lot of generosity has come our way from Macau. If I ever had to create a paradigm of how I'd like relationships to be between destinations and associations, this one comes very close to what it would be. There is in Macau a wide and profound recognition of the importance of travel and tourism, and that makes life easy for all of us.
Can you give an example of that?
Well, 15 years ago, Macau and PATA together flagged the importance of heritage preservation. That was very cutting edge in those days, and I think that whereas other destinations trample or put at risk all those beautiful colonial buildings or other landmarks and replace them with modernity, Macau has managed to invest in preservation. So it's sort of a "best practices" example. The theme of next year's PATA conference coming up in Bali is "Culture and Tourism: from Heritage to Legacy." That's very much what Macau is about. It has recognized that it must preserve its heritage in order to pass it on and stay unique.
During Tourism Week, we heard mention of Macau's focus on developing as a MICE destination. How do you see this happening?
It's very appropriate to focus on it, but it's a long-term proposition to establish a reputation as a MICE destination. It takes a long time to build that profile, so I think it's very important to get started. The industry is very wide and very varied, and there is always an interest in finding new and interesting destinations. Therefore, the marketing of it is important.
That sounds like another area where Macau and PATA could work together.
Well, it wouldn't surprise me if the developments now underway were in themselves a tremendous push. Remember, Las Vegas isn't the number one convention center for nothing. Asians love to gamble. There is a huge source market - China - on your doorstep and having a very extensive airport hub will spawn all sorts of MICE business in years ahead. We'll stand by. I think Macau will ask us for the right kind of task forces. We did one for the re-positioning of the airport about a month ago, and we'll do it for the MICE business, too. |
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Note: All information is correct at the time of printing.
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