MGTO eyes PTM 2009 in Hangzhou

MGTO brings local travel industry stakeholders to attend the PATA Travel Mart 2009 to be inaugurated at the World Trade Center Zhejiang, Hangzhou on September 23. Besides attracting an impressive line-up of buyers and sellers, the show will welcome China National Tourism Administration Chairman Shao Qiwei, who will attend the Gold Awards Lunch and Award Presentation and “PATA Travel Mart 2010” Macau Welcome Dinner (tbc) on September 25. As Asia Pacific’s foremost travel contracting and networking show, PATA Travel Mart held between September 22 and 25 will attract over 1,000 delegates, including 600 sellers and 305 buyers from over 50 countries and regions. "Experience Macau!" is the theme of Macau’s distinctive booth at the event, and it is designed to showcase the SAR’s multi-faceted tourism products to the world. Following the travel mart, where representatives from about twenty Macau travel agencies, hotels and MICE industry companies will have a chance to meet their counterparts from around the world, the PATA Board of Directors will meet September 25-27. To pave the way for PATA Travel Mart 2010 in Macau next September, MGTO will host a “Macau Day” on September 25 comprising the Gold Awards Lunch, Macau Welcome Dinner, cultural performance and parade by Portuguese folk dancers, lion dancers, Venetian Gondoliers and Tuna Macanese Band, to promote Macau tourism and invite the international travel trade and media to next year’s event. At the Gold Awards Lunch, plaques will be presented to winners for outstanding achievements in several categories. This year, MGTO’s“Experience Macau” video received an Honorable Mention for Marketing Media – Promotional Travel Video. At the “PATA Travel Mart 2010” Macau Welcome Dinner to be held at the People’s Hall of Zhejiang Province, performers from Macau will showcase unique tastes of Macau to the attendees there. Ahead of the PATA Travel Mart 2009, the 5th International Conference on Destination Management, “Weathering the Storm of Global Recession: The Challenge for Destination Management,” organized by the UNWTO in partnership with PATA and the China National Tourism Administration took place in Hangzhou from September 21-22, with MGTO Director João Manuel Costa Antunes as panel speaker on “Creating Opportunities - Innovation in Product Development”. Taking the opportunity of PATA Travel Mart, MGTO also joined with Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sport and Tourism to promote the two destinations to the Yangtse delta region at the Shenzhen and Macau Tourism Promotion Seminar held as a sideline event today (September 22).