PATA talks

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) will organize separate meetings with its senior members, youth leaders and senior journalists to seek input for the group's development to adjust itself with rapid changes in the world.

PATA's chairman, Joop Ave (right), who is also Indonesia's Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications, told reporters prior to a meeting of PATA's senior members here yesterday that gathering input from the three sources are important for PATA to get fresh ideas.

The senior members attending yesterday's meeting included four former chairmen of PATA -- (from left to right) Tungku Iskandar from Malaysia, Paul J. Casey from Australia, Kiyomi Sugahara from Japan and John S. Rowe from Australia. The meeting was also attended by Renton de Alwis, PATA Asia's vice president.

The 42-year-old PATA currently has 16,000 individual members and 2,000 organizational members which include countries, travel agencies, air carriers, hotels and restaurants.

Indonesia last year gained revenues of US$3.99 billion from 3.4 million foreign visitors. The number of tourists visiting Indonesia is expected this year to reach 3.88 million, who will likely spend $5.4 billion during their stays. (09)