The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has announced a new Premier Partnership with one of the world^,s most powerful brands, Visa. The strategic alliance brings together the leader of Asia Pacific travel and tourism and the World^,s leading card payment company

PATA President and CEO Mr Peter de Jong said he was delighted to wellcome Visa as a Premier Partner of the Association and to start developing joint programes utilising collective data resources and customer reach of the two organisations.

“Visa is vital contributor to the travel and tourism industry, facilitating billions of dollars worth of transactions for consumers traveling throughout the Asia Pacific rogion,” he said

“We look forward to developing a strong partnership with Visa base on our common goals, which include the growth of tourism on a sustainable basis and the reinforcement of the economic value of tourism”

Visa international Executive Vice Precident, South and Southeast Asia, Mr James Murray, said he was pleased to be joining forces withPATA, which provided unique access to the leaders of the public and the private sectors of travel and tourism

“In recent years, PATA has proven itself to be at the forefront of bringing various components of the tourism industry in Asia Pacific together to address critical issues ranging from infrastructure to adversity”, he said

He add: “Tourism is important to the economies of Asia Pacific and it is important to Visa. We have more than one billion cardholders globally, many of whom use their cards to pay for goods and services while traveling abroad”

Mr de Jong and Mr Murray agreed that one of the main areas of co - operation under the Premier Partnership would be research, utilising the acclaimed resources of PATA^,s strategic Intelligence Centre and Visa^, unrivalled database of spending behavious and trends.

Visa joins global media brands CNN, TIME and FORTUNE as Premier Partners.

(Source: PATA Compass)