The New York-based American Tourism Society (ATS) unanimously approved its new Strategic Plan presented to the ATS Board of Directors by Phil Otterson, ATS Board Member and Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee. The presentation was made following a two-day off-site meeting of the Committee facilitated by Hank Phillips, ATS Consultant.
Otterson, who is also Executive VP, External Affairs, Tauck World Discovery, said “our objective was to develop a plan that would build the future of the organization based on the successes of the past.”

Other members of the ATS strategic planning committee were Judy McDaniel, USTOA, David Parry, Academic Travel Abroad, Hank Phillips, ATS Consultant and Strategic Planning Committee Facilitator, Don Reynolds, Executive VP, ATS, Jan Rudominia, Polish National Tourist Office and Dave Spinelli, Vacation.com.

ATS, whose motto is “Bringing the World Together,” is a professional travel industry association formed in 1989 to promote, develop and expand high-quality, reliable travel between North America and the ATS destination areas: the Baltics, Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean / Red Sea Region and Russia. ATS is led by Chairman and Founder, Alex Harris, CTC, Chairman, General Tours and ATS President & CEO, Michael Stolowitzky.

Otterson said that “the new plan affirms the same vision of its founders, including Alex Harris, but has researched other travel and tourism organizational models to update ATS’s organization to make it more relevant to the industry today and more effective in its mission.”

He also noted that the committee had identified five specific goals:

• Organizational Capacity, which includes securing sponsorships, financing and partnerships



• Access & Relationship Building, including raising the profile of ATS in the industry through email communications and e-newsletters



• Education, both for the overseas and US-based members



• Marketing, strengthening media relations with press trips and ongoing press campaign and updates



• Government Relations through education of government entities and officials about the economic impact of developing tourism in ATS member countries

This Strategic Plan comes at a point when ATS has attracted great interest in the past few years as a result of its high profile conferences in destinations that are in a growth pattern – Hungary, the Czech Republic, Jordan and Israel. ATS now has an established track record of utilizing its senior government tourism connections and the extensive expertise of its collective membership in promoting and developing destinations, ATS President and CEO Mike Stolowitzky said that “we cannot continue as a serious organization without a plan of action for the next 3-4 years. We are growing at a tremendous pace. ATS members together do over four billion USDollars worth of transactions a year and are moving more than three million travelers annually.

Hank Phillips, who was recently retained as a consultant by ATS to facilitate the work of the Strategic Planning Committee, brings more than 20 years of experience at the National Tour Association, leading that organization’s recent transformation.

“In my view, ATS is a sleeping giant. It has an illustrious history which is one of its many strengths. It also has a promising future because of its other strengths that we have identified through the strategic planning sessions. These include the passion of its leaders, a unique mission among tourism organizations and the ability through its membership to carry out its mission. The key to realizing its potential will be to promote itself in a manner that prospective members and supporters will invest resources to fuel the work that ATS is prepared to do.”

Phillips added “ATS, born in the cold war, has uniquely been able to adapt itself to the new landscape of the countries it promotes and this strategic plan will now give it the direction it needs to make it a major force in the travel industry of today and the future.”

ATS Chairman Alex Harris applauded the work and vision of the Strategic Planning Committee. “As one of the founders of ATS I recognize that we have reached a stage in our development where we have to enlarge our base of membership as well as marketing and educational activities. Our industry is changing dramatically and ATS aims to fall in step with this exciting and challenging expansion of tourism.”

In summarizing the significance of the new strategic plan for ATS, Don Reynolds, Executive Vice President, said “We recognize the tremendous changes taking place in international tourism and ATS wants to anticipate our members’ needs in responding to these changes. We are using the Strategic Plan as a guide for the next three years.”

Reynolds also paid tribute to the key contribution that Hank Phillips made in the short time since he was retained by ATS for the specific purpose of creating a Strategic Plan. “But most significant,” Reynolds noted, “is Alex Harris’s presence and continued leadership as Chairman, which represents the continuity and vision of our mission.”