Formed in 2019 to address regulations around short-term rentals and digital marketing, the body has found new purpose with Covid-19 as it seeks to lobby governments in APAC to establish common protocol for safe travel such as a two-swap process for opening of travel corridors and safety and hygiene standards in destinations and hotels. Yeoh Siew Hoon speaks to ATTIA chair Ang Choo Pin, a career diplomat who joined travel to “change the way governments look at tourism”. With ATTIA, he sure has a big job on his hands – to find wider acceptance by a fragmented industry and to be seen beyond a “big boy” lobby.
You know an industry has come of age when it needs an association to champion its interests, or perhaps it takes a crisis such as Covid-19 to accelerate its formation and kickstart it into action. Or perhaps it felt its interests were too specific and unique that they couldn’t be looked after well enough by other travel associations.
Whatever the reason, say hello to the newly-formed Asia Travel Technology Industry Association (ATTIA), spearheaded by the big four online travel brands, Expedia Group, Booking.com, Agoda and Airbnb, to champion the interests of their sector which is expected to account for more than half of all travel bookings by 2022 (Phocuswright APAC Total and Online Travel Markets Report), and that’s before Covid-19 struck.
Yes, from being an outlier segment circa 1996 when the likes of Expedia and Booking.com were found, the segment is now huge enough to command its own association to fight its battles. And let’s face it – the mass migration of consumers online and the increased familiarity with e-commerce tools across generations will without doubt accelerate the shift to online in the region.
Post-Covid, the online travel space will no doubt thrive again but before that happens, travel needs to recover and that is what ATTIA wants to support and facilitate.
According to ATTIA chair Ang Choo Pin, the association was actually formed in 2019 and the four parties had been working behind the scenes to advise governments on regulations around short-term rentals as well as to keep the digital marketing agenda top of mind among tourism authorities.
But along came Covid-19 which gave it the impetus to launch. “There is an increased need for platforms to come together for travel recovery. Our purpose is to look at how to manage the crisis and how to recover,” said Ang, who is also senior director, government and gorporate affairs, Asia, Expedia Group.
“One, we have to look at the sustainability of the tourism sector – how to protect jobs and livelihoods, how to tide tourism businesses over and, in the longterm, what skills are needed to adjust to the new normal. Two is the resumption of international travel in the absence of an end to Covid-19. There will be dramatic changes to our industry after this and we want to prepare our partners for it.”
In March, together with the Asia Internet Coalition (Ang also chairs the AIC) and the EU-ASEAN Business Council, ATTIA wrote to governments across Asia, calling on them to come up with measures to support tourism businesses which had been hard-hit by Covid-19. In that letter, it underscored tourism’s importance to local economies by sharing these data points gathered from WTTC.
- Travel & Tourism generates US$2,971b towards APAC’s collective GDP, representing 10% of the region’s economy.
- Travel and Tourism growth in APAC translated to more than 21 million new jobs in 2019, which was more than half of all new jobs created globally in 2019. As a subset, the economic potential of domestic travel in the region is vast: in 2019 domestic visitor spend across APAC made up 74% of total visitor spend.
- The T&T sector in APAC employs about 57.5 million people in 21 economies that make up the APEC forum. (Asia Nikkei)
Clearly, there’s a lot at stake and it is critical that not only local actions are needed but bilateral and multi-lateral actions need to be put in place for the flow of people and trade across borders in the region.
“Ideal protocol is a two-swap process”
ATTIA is recommending governments adopt bilateral and eventually, multi-lateral common protocol around testing procedures at airports, on arrival and departure. Ang said the ideal protocol would be a two-swap process – one on departure from home port and one on arrival back at home port.
“That way, there is confidence that everyone who gets on the plane is free of the virus, there is no need to be seated far from one another and when you land, there is no need to be tested and no need for quarantine,” he said. “Then when you return, you are tested again.
“The key is how can we get travel to resume even in the absence of a vaccine. What kind of confidence building measures can we introduce? Of course, we’d be happy if a vaccine is found and everyone is healthy but what can we do in the meantime? We can’t put travel on hold, we need to travel, for business, to see family and friends.”
Ang said since the letter was sent, it’s been encouraged by the response of governments who have asked ATTIA for data and best practices. It’s also been encouraged by ongoing talks between governments for bilateral travel corridors.
He cited the example of Singapore and China, the first travel corridor to be established in the region, although that protocol requires a four-swap process as well as active tracking of itineraries while in-destination. “That works for business travellers who have a fixed itinerary but not for leisure travellers,” he said, “but it’s a good first step and we can learn from those first openings for business travel.”
Singapore and Malaysia have also set August 10 as the target date to start cross-border travel for some residents and business travellers, subject to Covid-19 measures. Both countries have agreed to implement two schemes – the Reciprocal Green Lane and Periodic Commuting Arrangement. The Reciprocal Green Lane will allow travel between Singapore and Malaysia for essential business and official purposes. The Periodic Commuting Arrangement will allow Singapore and Malaysia residents who hold long-term immigration passes for business and work purposes in the other country, to enter that country for work.
“We are encouraged by these arrangements, and we understand similar mechanisms are being discussed in China and South Korea,” said Ang.
“Confusion over safe travel protocol must be avoided”
He agreed there is lots of confusion around re-opening protocol with different countries introducing different models. “If you recall after 911, airport security was the most pressing issue and different countries implemented different standards and it became confusing for the customer. We don’t want to see this confusion in a post-Covid world – there is a need for different travel associations to align and work with governments.”
He said ATTIA was reaching out to other travel associations to see if interests and recommendations can be aligned. “For example, we looked at the WTTC safe travel protocol, and they make a lot of sense and we are socializing them with governments. Eventually, we will settle on a set of standards, just that it will take some time.”
A career diplomat, Ang is aware of the challenges of firstly, aligning associations, each of which have their own agendas to advance and territories to defend, and secondly, uniting them to lobby governments on common protocols.
“It’s about getting the other person to see we are on the same side. It is in all our interests to grow the pie together, survive together. Whether it’s us or local travel associations, or PATA, or WTTC – it’s how to get people travelling again,” said Ang.
Beyond airports, ATTIA is also looking at safety and cleanliness protocol for accommodation. “Some governments have established their own – like Singapore and Thailand – and some hotel groups have introduced their own. What’s important is there are standards in place to make consumers feel confident, and that governments and hotels work together.”
OTAs are also approaching this differently. At the recent WiT Virtual on Japan, Rakuten Travel’s Yoshiyuki Takano spoke of how it had put together a list of 36 “hotel countermeasures” and that it had 15,000 hotels with this information on its site as of July 1.
With his Expedia hat on, Ang said that Expedia is not establishing its own cleanliness standards. “If a hotel has a certain set of protocol, we will put it on the property listing.”
A statement from Booking.com said, “With safety and security of utmost concern, Booking.com is continually updating the support, including with regard to providing enhanced transparency to consumers around cleaning and hygiene information when booking on our platform. For example, we are making it easier for our partners to display their cleaning, hygiene and sanitization measures on their property page, this includes measures to aid in social distancing, food safety and local regulations.”
Champion needed to fight for specific interests although “the distinction between online and offline is blurring”
One could argue why the need for another travel association when there are already so many out there, and could ATTIA’s interests have been covered by existing associations?
Ang said the four founding members felt the online travel space was unique, sitting at the intersection of travel and tech, with specific issues such as data privacy, ecommerce regulations and Internet issues. “We are different from pure traditional brick and mortar and it’s an outlet for online travel platforms to espouse their views.”
Having said that, he acknowledges the distinction between online and offline is blurring with more offline companies going online, and this is expected to get even greyer over time. “People’s habits are changing,” he said, referring to the changes in behavior Covid-19 has spawned.
Fundamentally, he sees the division between offline and online as unhealthy and is aware of the suspicion with which online travel platforms are regarded by traditional brick and mortar agents, something WiT has come up against time and time again over its own evolution – issues such as “technology takes away real jobs” and “online companies do not play by the same tax rules as local agents”.
Ang said these perceptions can be addressed through education and collaboration. Citing the example of Hong Kong where Expedia had faced friction with local agents, he said, “We started reaching out to them to say if they worked with our global platform, they could have access to our global inventory, and their customers would remain theirs. Now more than one in 3 travel agents are working with us as affiliates and together, we are growing the pie.”
Challenges facing ATTIA as it finds its feet in a changing environment
Incorporated in Singapore, ATTIA is funded equally by the four founding members and there is a part-time secretariat. Ang said the idea is to start small, “get the work done first” and as such, it hasn’t given much thought to its future scope and membership terms.
Ang said it’s received enquiries by other online travel companies to ask if and how they can be part of ATTIA. “That’s encouraging, it shows what we are doing resonates with others. We all need to work together, we cannot be protecting just our own interests.”
In terms of who it may consider admitting as members, Ang said, “We will look at relevance and expertise – the values of ATTIA are to keep things simple, inclusive, consistent and fair. That applies to the travel policies we are asking governments to adopt.”
Said Ang, “At this point in time, it’s about getting the building blocks in place on a bilateral basis, and multi-lateral basis. If we have a robust enough set of protocol, we could allow travel to resume safely and for people to feel confident about travel.”
ATTIA is also urging governments in the region to “re-visit visa facilitation and visa-waiver progress lost during the COVID-19 pandemic”. Said Ang, “Many countries have withdrawn and suspended visa measures such as visa on arrival or visa free status – and we are encouraging governments to reinstate those measures because it is in their economic interests to have flow of people.”
Given that travel recovery has to be first domestic and then regional, it is critical borders be opened within ASEAN to facilitate intra-ASEAN travel which is such a huge component of the industry, and one hopes that ATTIA can play a more effective role than others before it, to champion the shaping of ASEAN into one common market much like the EU.
For example, the ability to cross borders without passports or, at the very least, could visa restrictions be removed for expatriates living within ASEAN if they wish to travel within the region? Imagine a future where ASEAN becomes its own domestic market just as the EU has become.
Ang acknowledges the challenges of pursuing an EU-like model for ASEAN given the different political, social and economic levels of different countries within ASEAN but if ATTIA is to make a tangible difference and contribution to the industry, beyond being “just another association furthering its own interests”, then it needs to set its sights higher and disrupt the association model just as its founding members did to travel all those years ago.
The biggest challenge facing ATTIA is of course its acceptance by the industry at large and travel, online or offline, is extremely fragmented. The four big brand names may have clout with governments but will it be seen as more of a “big boy” lobby to push their agenda or a champion of the wider industry? If it expands beyond the four, will it become yet another association stymied by processes and different interests and lose the ability to be nimble and agile, as their own tech businesses profess to be?
What it has going for it though is an industry in need and fighting for survival and looking for the proverbial “white knight” to save it, and being constantly disappointed because of the cacophony of fragmented voices out there. If ATTIA can prove itself to be the beacon for at least the online travel sector amid this very fluid and uncertain environment, then its inception is good news.
Ang’s background in diplomacy and politics will surely be put to the test in his new role as ATTIA chair. When I first interviewed him in June 2019, he said the reason he joined travel was because he wanted to change the way governments looked at tourism and that his one wish was “That governments look at travel as potential game changers in the way people live, as a force for good, and be conscious of that.”
Well, he’s certainly found his calling. Now he has to get governments to save travel.
• Featured image credit: ArtMassa/Getty Images