Minister St.Ange of the Seychelles participates in 2016 PATA Summit panel discussion on important tourism and travel issues
aTP- Arab tourism portal- On his visit to the 2016 PATA Summit held in Guam at the Dusit Thani Resort, and following his delivery of the keynote speech, Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister for Tourism & Culture was invited to participate in a panel discussion on issues affecting the tourism and travel industry.
Hosted by the Guam Visitors Bureau, the 2016 annual summit is a 4-day programme consisting of the association’s executive and advisory board meetings, annual general meeting and PATA Youth Symposium as well as a one-day conference that addresses major issues relevant to the travel and tourism industry.
Also taking part in the panel discussion which was moderated by Sarah Mathews’ head of destination marketing APAC, TripAdvisor, were: Morris Sim, co-founder & CEO of Circos Brand Karma and Jason Lin, chief of talent, Talent Basket.
Together, they first tackled a major theme of the discussion – Driving Solo or Following the Pack and explored whether destinations should be promoted individually or collectively within a region.
In a hi-tech approach, further questions were then generated by the audience via a downloaded PATA app which allowed them to question the panelists via a special function called Slido.
Over the course of several questions addressed to him, Minister St.Ange took a further opportunity to praise Guam for the way it incorporates the natural charm of its people into its brand and how he believes that to be the way forward for the island’s tourism industry. He was also able to voice his opinion on destination marketing and branding issues.
Minister St.Ange, who will be attending the PATA summit together with Senior Tourism Consultant, Glynn Burridge, until Sunday, May 22nd, is expected to appear in another panel discussion: Merging Motivations, on May 21st to explore the different roles the government and private sector play in generating growth for tourism.
