BLTF believes that PATA / The Pacific Asia Travel Association
is not a true travel association in that it chiefly even solely
represents the interests of the travel industry "professional",
rather than the interests of the traveling public, etc. This
has been denied by PATA through its lawyers, Cooper, White
& Cooper LLP of San Francisco in spite of the fact it
seems perfectly clear PATA's own web site content, media reports,
PATA's own Trademark registration details and PATA's attitude
show them to be a subscription based industry marketing intelligence
company and nothing substantially more.
BLTF believes PATA promoting itself as a true travel association
is detrimental to the interests of the traveling public in
that evidence indicates PATA membership equates to marketing
over compassion and revenue over ethics. BLTF's owner, Mark
Austin, after having an existing grievance with PATA over
their removing and rescinding their membership code of conduct
following his complaint against one of PATA's favored members
(PT Bali Discovery Tours) was horrified when he read the official
announcement emails sent out by PATA after the Bali October
1st 2005 bombings; these were completely devoid of any condolences
or sympathy for the victims of those attacks. The emails instead
clearly were focused on business level damage appraisals.
Mark feels these emails are nothing if not callous and made
him want to look further at the truth behind the name "PATA".
Mark Austin believed, as probably most people would / do
too, that the Pacific Asia Travel Association by token of
its name is exactly that, an association equally for all people
connected or concerned with tourism in that region; but the
facts show this to be false. It seems that PATA not only misrepresents
itself but actually provides less concern and / or protection
than other travel industry associations who are totally accurate
about describing what they are. For example ABTA (The Association
of British Travel Agents), as well as clearly being an accurately
described industry association for travel agents, has stringent
criteria for and requires significant investment from its
members to protect the interests of their customers; PATA
does not. It seems the only criteria for membership to PATA
is to have some connection to the travel industry within the
Pacific Rim and / or Asia and to pay PATA's membership fees.
Further, PATA's membership fees appear less like a membership
fee and more like a marketing data subscription fee.
Although BLTF's owner has no issue over PATA's existence
as a travel industry marketing intelligence company with an
association or rather subscription based aspect to their business,
he believes the trading style / name "Pacific Asia Travel
Association" to be at best misleading, at worst fraudulent.
BLTF's owner believes he has legal cause for complaint against
PATA (actually Pacific Asia Travel Association Incorporated
of Oakland, California, USA) on the basis they are feigning
something they are not and with it giving unfair credibility
to their business associates detrimental to his own personal
and commercial interests. BLTF believes that this Californian
corporation should not be allowed to trade as it does and
should be either renamed to, at the very least, The Pacific
Asia Travel Industry Association or better still the Pacific
Asia Travel Industry Marketing Association, or should conduct
itself as a true travel association.
BLTF' s owner believes PATA members enjoy an unfair and unjustified
knee jerk beneficial reaction from the general traveling public
because they assume, as he used to, that PATA members belong
to a true, wider interest, higher level travel association.
However, after studying PATA's own web site and the apparently
very clear, possibly outdated (too aggressive) marketing messages
it seemingly promotes, BLTF believes that PATA members should
be treated with more caution by travelers than travel companies
who are not PATA members. After all, BLTF's owner could find
absolutely nothing that shows PATA do anything credible for
travelers except likely cost them more money on the basis
PATA members may likely sell harder as a result of the marketing
intelligence they receive and actually charge their customers
more to cover their membership / subscription charges. Also,
even as an industry marketing corporation PATA's intelligence
and advice to its members may in fact be counter productive
to its members. BLTF believes what both the travel industry
and the traveling public needs is the same thing in these
increasingly educated times; standards and information before
marketing. BLTF believes SE Asia needs and a true travel association
should have high minimum customer protection and information
standards for for membership, not PATA's apparent style of
marketing and little or nothing else more.
BLTF's owner has written to PATA disputing their legal right
to use the name they do and has produced a web site, PATA?
No Thanks?, now under threat of legal action by PATA's
lawyers, Cooper, White & Cooper LLP. BLTF's owner is also
having PATA's trading investigated / analyzed to determine
whether they are in fact a true non-profit organization as
they claim but as certain even all available facts cast doubt
upon. Mark plans to take legal action against PATA once this
investigation is complete (it was delayed because Cooper,
White & Cooper LLP refused requests to provide their client's
full registration details) primarily / at least to try and
have them change their name and trading style so it does not
mislead the public as he believes it very much does now.
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