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REPORT – PATA Travel Mart – HANGZHOU: PATA has signed a two-year agreement with Creative Advances Technology (CAT) that will offer new ecommerce opportunities for Association members worldwide.
CAT are the developers of the Standard Online Tourism Architecture (SOTA) travel platform now being used by over 700 travel companies and organisations – including Virtual Malaysia (virtualmalaysia.com) and IMT-GT Tourism. SOTA provides the platform for these businesses to network and build sales leads, connected to a global audience of more than one billion travel customers in a US$ 200 billion market place.
Under the Memorandum of Understanding, signed at the PATA Travel Mart in Hangzhou, PATA and CAT will together offer the SOTA platform of ecommerce, content and community to all PATA members.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for PATA members to build and enhance their online presence,” says PATA CEO Greg Duffell. “We are now creating a new PATA website that, when fully operational in Q1 2010, will bring major new benefits to our members. SOTA brings an exciting additional dimension and adds real value to PATA membership. This agreement with CAT gives PATA members a practical marketing and sales distribution channel for use in day-to-day business dealings.”
CAT Chief Operating Officer Vincent Kok says, “There’s clear evidence that the internet is now the preferred medium for booking travel in many markets. We’ve proved that the SOTA platform increases opportunities for generating business leads and sales and it also, importantly, improves travel resilience. SOTA takes away the complexity of technology and allows operators to focus upon managing their businesses.”
“We are delighted to have the Pacific Asia Travel Association as our partners and we look forward to developing this MoU into a practical and profitable proposition for PATA members worldwide.”
The MoU makes provision for PATA to receive a fee from certain online transactions via the SOTA portal on the Association’s website. A proportion of the revenue generated will be allocated to the PATA Foundation for use in providing grants and donations to worthy causes in line with the principles and objectives of the Foundation.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
