Pacific Asia Travel Association Signs Microsoft Collaboration

The Pacific Asia Travel Association has announced a collaboration with Microsoft that is designed to improve tourism data collection and develop advanced analytics that help travel industry operators better serve their customers.

Experts from PATA and Microsoft will work together to upgrade the PATAmPOWER online data platform that gives members a broad range of timely insights into the Asia Pacific visitor economy.

This collaboration benefits all 850-plus PATA members including government, state and city tourism bodies, international airlines, airports and cruise lines, educational institutions and travel industry companies in 101 countries.

PATA chief executive, Mario Hardy, said: “With this collaboration our goal is to produce even better data more quickly to our members in both graphic and tabular formats.

“The challenge with visitor data is that it is often one dimensional and pulled from a limited number of sources that may render analysis difficult and misleading.

“We will also work together on mechanisms for data fusion and linkage, geo-tagging for PATA member attractions, and analysis of travellers’ data through credit card expenditure and social media feeds.

“This will ensure data is pulled and analysed from various visitor touch-points so that PATA members are privy to complete visitor information.

“This enables our broadly-based membership to plan more effectively the promotions and campaigns that target different consumer groups,” he added.

Data and insights will be shared at technical or strategic demonstrations and workshops at various PATA events as well as stand-alone training programmes directed towards PATA government members.

Such technical sessions will allow participants to learn the tools of the trade, such as the analytic components, while the strategic sessions will focus upon the vitally important area of data interpretation.

Erick Stephens, chief technology officer, Microsoft Public Sector, Asia, said: “We are pleased to collaborate with PATA to enable its members to transform the way they engage with travellers and capture, through data, the business opportunities of tomorrow.

“Building better, stronger engagements by harnessing data for a complete view of customers and drawing actionable intelligence, predictive insights that can deliver personalisation at scale have become crucial for the business of today.”