A group of experts from Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) is in Macau for a field visit as the starting point for a task force project to provide insight and recommendations for the positioning of the city as a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure. Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) has requested PATA, which is recognized as a leading tourism organization in the Asia Pacific Region, to establish a task force to provide expert opinions in determining the future tourism policies and plans required to achieve the positioning of Macau as a World Centre of Tourism and Leisure. To integrate the task force project PATA has appointed seven experts from the academic and consultancy fields covering area of expertise ranging from aviation to destination management and branding. The task force is expected to submit a report to MGTO by beginning of 2012. The task force members arrived in Macau on Sunday and will depart on Friday. The program of the group in Macau includes meetings with MGTO, several government and tourism industry entities, a tour to the Macau World Heritage and the new tourism developments, and a visit to Hengqin to learn more about the development plan in Zhuhai, among others. The members of the PATA task force are Andrew Drysdale, executive director of Mentor Aviation Services Pty Ltd., Australia, Jon Hutchison, managing director of Business Events Sydney, Alastair Morrison, chief executive officer of Belle Tourism International Consulting Ltd., China, Lindsay Turner from Victoria University, Australia, Susan Warren, director of Making Tourism Work Associates, New Zealand and UK, and Stewart Moore, chief executive officer of EC3 Global, Australia. The PATA task force membership also includes Dai Bin, president of China Tourism Academy, but he is not joining the field trip to Macau. PATA has been requested by MGTO to conduct five other task force projects in the past, namely: balance between preservation and tourism development (1980); education and training framework to meet short and long term manpower needs (1990); development of a meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) destination (1994); about setting up overseas representation offices (1996); and market diversification and interrelationship between aviation network and marketing promotion (2002).