On 22nd September 2016, H.E. Mme. Yang, Secretary-General of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) met with Andrew Jones, Chairman of Pacific Asia Travel Association( PATA) and exchanged views at Sichuan province.
Secretary-General Yang commended PATA on its hard working on the promotion of Asian Tourism Industry. She briefed on the work of ACC in promoting mutual cooperation between tourism departments and industries. She said that ACC had made innovative efforts to assist ASEAN states in drafting tourism developing policies, hosting capacity building workshops to further support the development of Chinese outbound travel market, and exploring the new channels on tourism cooperation. These efforts yielded the fruitful results. Leaders of ASEAN and China had reached consensus to declare the year 2017 as the ASEAN-China Year of Trousim Cooperation. ACC would take this as an opportunity to further strengthen capacity training and the youth people exchanges between ACC and PATA as well as to promote ASEAN-China tourism industry moving forward.
Chairman Jones extended his heartfelt thanks to ACC on supporting PATA and accepting the invitation as the supporting organization of Asia-Pacific Tour Operators Conference. He said that PATA was established for 65 years . PATA had promoted and guided the sustainable development of tourism in Asia Pacific Region actively, by working with the official and non-governmental tourism partners. PATA was actively planning to expand the relevant business to provide more conducive conditions for the development of Asia-Pacific tourism. He percieved that both ASEAN and China have rich tourism resources, and have achieved positive results in attracting international tourists. China and ASEAN Member States should aim at a win-win target through combining their own resources as well as developing planning of tourism development, especially to further strengthen tourism facility and upgrade the tourism services. PATA was willing to continue to work with ACC in order make a new contribution to the development of ASEAN-China and Asia-Pacific tourism.