BANGKOK, 6 September 5, 2024: The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) will migrate its annual summit to Turkey, where an invisible line marks its Asia Pacific membership border.
PATA has been pushing its “Asia-Pacific” membership zone west and east over the years to attract new members, and now it will take its annual summit to the land where Asia and Europe meet.
The Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA) will host the PATA Annual Summit 2025, which will take place in the capital, İstanbul, in March 2025. The announcement was initially made at the recent PATA board meeting held in Bangkok on Friday, 30 August 2024, and released this week following the PTM also hosted in Bangkok.
Perched on the Bosphorus Strait, İstanbul is a city renowned for its historical sites with incredible architectural design, including the Hagia Sophia, the Dolmabahçe Palace, and the Grand Bazaar—one of the world’s most iconic markets. As a key location within Türkiye, which welcomed 56.7 million international visitors in 2023 [TGA, 2024], İstanbul plays a vital role in one of the fastest-growing tourism destinations globally.
PATA CEO expressed his confidence in the annual gathering by stating, “I am humbled to take the PATA Annual Summit 2025 to a city that stands on two continents – Asia and Europe, as PATA strives to grow within the Asia Pacific region and globally.”
Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency General Manager İsmail Bütün said, “As the Turkish Tourism Board, we are excited to be hosting PATA’s 2025 Annual Summit in İstanbul. The Asia-Pacific region is amongst our key growth markets. The Pacific Asia Travel Association embodies a great membership base of hospitality, aviation, and travel industry partners in this territory. We can’t wait to host the esteemed members of PATA in İstanbul soon and show them the best of Turkish hospitality.”
Turkish Airlines has been confirmed as the Official Airline Partner for the event.
We can easily recognise why the association is taking its 2025 events to Istanbul. It needs to broaden membership recruitment urgently to survive financially, and it has made some gains by hosting events in the Middle East. However, many PATA stalwarts would have preferred seeing the annual summit move to a Pacific Ocean destination rather than the gateway to Europe. They will view the bold endeavour with a degree of caution. PATA was founded in Hawaii, and its heritage is intertwined with that of the Pacific Islands, especially as climate change challenges their future and very existence, with tourism likely to suffer the most significant impact.
