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Mr. Etienne Pauchant, Managing Director of Mediterranean Travel Association analyzes in TravelDailyNews the challenges and the opportunities in the Mediterranean tourism today as well as the efforts of the newly established association to help tourism in the region.
TravelDailyNews: What are META’s goals and what are your solutions for the problems that tourism industry in the Mediterranean faces today?
Etienne Pauchant: The Mediterranean Travel Association (META) is an international non-profit organisation, representing the private and public sectors of the travel and tourism industry in order to ensure sustainable development and excellence of tourism professionals in the Mediterranean region.
The creation of META was a logical decision given that the Mediterranean is the world’s leading tourism region, attracting more than 260 million arrivals in 2005. By 2010, this is expected to grow to over 300 million. What greater reason could there be to justify META’s creation in order to maximise the potential of this growth and manage it more effectively?
Tourism is a major economic activity for the countries of the Mediterranean. Its tourism economy is the largest in terms of employment, infrastructure development, and tax generation. It contributes to promoting harmonious relationships between the two shores of the Mediterranean.
The role and structure of META are loosely based on those of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), which has existed for over 60 years and which has been successful in developing synergies between the private and public sectors serving the Asia Pacific region.
It seems obvious that the META zone has lost market shares on the international markets, since 2000, and that, despite a growth in absolute number of arrivals. This is mainly due to the fact that the worldwide tourism is progressing faster than the META zone. Different reasons could explain this relative drop:
-The Mediterranean markets are not presenting themselves as a whole in the European tourism fairs and there are no structures able to gather them for a common presentation in the current most booming markets in the World: China, India, and South America.
-The Med zone is before all a North South market. Its global market share was close to 35% between 2000 and 2003, when the international tourism was in crisis. During these years, the Europeans, like the others markets, thought (for different reasons), that it was safer to travel nearby their place of residence. In 2004 and 2005, the international tourism market made up its slump, and the European long distance holidays picked up again. Currently, the META’ market share is decreasing, and we are today in a declining trend, tending to 32%, due to a double effect: more long distance holidays made by the European markets and not enough of visibility in the new Asian and South American markets.
TDN: The establishment of the association was something new for the Mediterranean region. What was the reaction of the tourism industry to this?
E. P.: There were many initiatives in the Med zone for implementing different international bodies in charge of the economic development. Until now, all of them were introduced by an administrative willingness. META is the sole organisation which is separated from any political and administrative pressures, wherever they could come from. We believe that the civil society has a strong role to play in the setting up of the different problems of the Mediterranean travel industry (administrative, technical, promotion, etc) and to bring up simple and efficient solutions. These solutions could then be presented to the concerned authorities, by a large part of the tourism business players, for a constructive discussion and the optimisation of the tourism industry. Each component of the tourism chain: production (TO), distribution (TA and on line), transportation (all modes), paid for accommodation (all types), and the receptive companies (culture, sport, sightseeing, etc), need the success of each of the others. META is not a professional owner association, and doesn’t represent its members, but give them the possibility to express themselves when it is time to do it, or to get from the organization the helpful information, coming from all over the world, for improving the quality and the efficiency of their services. META is before all a catalyst of the international tourism technical development.
After 6 months of activity, META was able to gather several key players in the Mediterranean tourism business. We will continue this policy in 2006 and 2007, because the small and middle size companies will join the organization if the leaders are already members of the organization and ready to participate actively in the improvement of the Med’ zone tourism procedures. As it is today, META counts 38 members or sympathizers. The most important contributors to META in these first six months of existence were coming from Morocco, Tunisia, Italy, Spain and France. Our objective for 2006 is to get between 50 and 200 members before the end of this year, and 1 000, before the end of 2007.
TDN: What are your estimations for the Mediterranean region this year?
E. P.: Before the Middle East crisis in this summer 2006, the META projection for the year 2006 was estimated for more than 4% (compared with + 3.69 % in 2005). Due to this crisis and its impact on the East markets of the META zone, the Med’ markets could reach 270 millions of international arrivals in 2006 (compared with 262 millions in 2005).
TDN: Which destination is going to be the most dynamic in the next two years and why?
E. P.: 85% of the 2005 META international arrivals are concentrated in the E.U. markets (Med North), from the Portugal until Greece, but the increasing ratio in these markets were only of + 5.46 % in 5 years, between 2000 and 2005. During the same period of time 2000 – 2005, the South markets (from Egypt to Morocco) were increasing of + 42.83 %, the East markets (from Turkey to Palestine) of + 39.80 % and the Balkans of + 47.27 %. Last year, in 2005 vs. 2004, this ratio was respectively of + 3.14 % in the Med North, + 7.14 % in the Med South, + 4.53 % in the Med East and + 7.56 % in the Balkans. The 2006 half year was excellent, in all the META markets. If the current crisis in the Middle East doesn’t degenerate in a regional conflict and/or in an upsurge of terrorist attacks, the Med East could get a slight increase in the coming years. The Med South (especially Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt) and the Balkans (especially Croatia), will certainly record a new strong increase in 2006 and in 2007.
TDN: You give special attention to research and forecasts. Are you cooperating with World Tourism Organization in this field and how are you planning to produce reliable data?
E. P.: META maintains a strong relationship with the UNWTO and participate actively in the data production and analysis. We published in July 2006 an accurate situation of the META zone as it was in 2005, with a comparison with the worldwide progression of the tourism industry. We produced also some regional results highlighting three META zones: North (from Portugal until Greece), East (from Turkey until Palestine), the Balkans, and South (from Egypt until Morocco). This was the first time that the META zone was visible. This zone is one of the most homogeneous in the World: the countries around the Mediterranean Sea. It is also the first international tourism destination. But, paradoxically, it is the less known as a global destination among the other big zones in the World, like the Caribbean, Asia Pacific or the Indian Ocean, yet less consistency. This is mainly due to the fact that the different markets composing the META zone were previously integrated in different subgroups, like Middle East, Africa, South Europe and the Balkans, and never presented together.
We are currently progressing in our forecast algorithm. This sophisticated new statistical tool is built in total cooperation with the UNWTO and replace itself in the decentralisation of the Tourism Satellite Account program. It is using new variables, and we are testing them during this month of August. We will produce in the coming weeks our first forecasting 2005, and will check our results with the recent UNWTO data published last June. Then, we plan to project the year 2006 before the end of this year and the year 2007 at the beginning of the next year. Our objective is to produce yearly two projections for each of the two half year. In 2007, we will try to add some environmental variables within our algorithm. All these results and the methodology will be fully presented and our members will have full (and free) access to the data.
TDN: What will the subject of META’s first forum be and what areas will it cover? Where is it going to be held?
E. P.: Two META events are currently on going. The first one is focused on the Cruise market in the Mediterranean. It will be hold in Marseilles next November. The second one is scheduled for the next spring, in Tunis, concerned by the Mediterranean Open Sky and its impact on the Low Cost development. We are studying different other topics, like the growing in age in the occidental markets, the impact of the environment on the demand, the force of the destination vs. the products, the future of the Mediterranean travel agencies, the amazing development of the online access (PDA, mobile telephone, integration of the GPS, computers, etc). META will invite in each event several speakers among the best specialists in the World. They will present, beside the Mediterranean professionals, some examples of developments in Asia, America, Europe and the different ways chosen for improving the phenomena. Which solutions were applied and how they were implemented into the tourism industry, for which results.
TDN: META’s chairman had recently resigned of his position. Will this prevent META in achieving its goals and in what level? Who will the next chairman be?
E. P.: Pierre Amalou, our first Chairman is a founding member of META. He expressed his willingness to resign from his position, for professional reasons. We sincerely regret this decision, even if we fully understand his reasons. We have now several candidates in different META markets. Our Board will take a decision in the coming weeks and we will introduce the new META Chairman as soon as its decision will be made.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
