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PATA’s director of strategic intelligence John Koldowski said inbound agents needed to understand the idiosyncrasies of the Chinese population.

Billed as ‘Middle East meets Middle Kingdom', an audience comprising PATA members and some of Dubai's leading travel and hotel operators recently gathered at Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel to hear what advice PATA's market analysts had for those who want to stay ahead of the pack.

Speakers included PATA director of strategic intelligence John M. Koldowski; Dr Grace Pan, senior manager, The Nielsen Company Shanghai; and Rohit Talwar, futurist and CEO of UK-based consultancy firm Fast Future.

The conference focused on Asia Pacific tourism forecasts up to 2009 and outlined the key issues the Middle East travel industry needs to get to grips with if it wants to take a slice of the potentially mega profitable pie that is the Asian market.

Speakers also gave stark warnings that responsible tourism and having a solid environmental policy were no longer an option for the big operators - they were essential for business survival.

Arabian Travel News spoke to the panel members individually after the conference to find out how travel agents should approach the Asian market in general and how they saw the relationship between the Middle East and China panning out in the next few years.

PATA's director of strategic intelligence John Koldowski is responsible for the association's collection, analysis and interpretation of travel and tourism statistics, as well as the identification and monitoring of factors which may affect travel to, from and within the region:

How should travel agents go about selling the UAE to the Chinese market?

First and foremost it's a case of understanding the differences within the market. People just think China is another market - it's not - even within China there are idiosyncrasies that differ from province to province that you need to understand.

It's essential to have a very reliable and trustworthy partner on the ground in China. It is a very complex market so you need someone to help steer you through.

The UAE and China are two very different markets, however, as the branding studies show, two areas where the UAE performs really well are dining and shopping and these are real hot buttons for Asian travellers - it's just a matter of working out which Asian travellers.

They're all very, very, different.

In that case, what should the smart travel companies be doing?

Well you know the saying ‘follow the money' - that's what the smart ones will be doing. So, you go in to China and you have a look where the money sits - where the higher than average earners are and begin to understand what they're lifestyle preferences are and you begin to market directly to them.

You can't market to China as a whole; you have to take chewable pieces one at a time - so you pick the best pieces.

How do you see the relationship between the Middle East and the Pacific Asia region developing?

The boundaries are moving all the time and I can only see a positive future where China and the Gulf countries having a lot more interaction. I think it's going to be a very interesting few years.

Can you see any pitfalls?

All over the place! You can spend a great deal of time building up a market place and then you get a few operators who are, shall we say, less than transparent - and they can collapse the market for everyone.

If you say you're going to deliver on a promise you need to deliver on a promise, and you need to do so consistently.

There's competition appearing all over the place, so you need to be aware of that and you need to continually reinvent yourself.

This is where we need the new generation to come in - the forward thinkers.

Are the Middle East's key travel and tourism players taking environmental issues seriously?

If you take the aviation sector for example, there's a financial imperative for them to improve.

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