LESS INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS IN ASIA PACIFIC

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 19 (Bernama)-- International inbound arrivals in Asia Pacific this year todate decreased to 124,550,780 from 130,962,043 in the same period of last year.

The number of international visitor arrivals in Southeast Asia for the first
quarter this year contracted by 18.9 percent compared with a growth of 7.8
percent in the same quarter of last year.

Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) President Gregory A.Duffell cited
political instability, natural disasters, acts of terrorism, disease and
secu rity issues among the reasons for the drop in inbound arrivals.

Fear of contracting the highly infectious virus Pandemic A(H1N1), brought
about thousands of travel package cancellations from May to July this year, he
said during the launch of the Standard Online Tourism Architecture (SOTA)
international conference here Wednesday.

SOTA is a consolidated tourism e-business platform aimed at uniting
government agencies, various sectors of the travel industry and consumers.

It is a travel eco-system to leverage on the power of networking, via
collaboration with Google, Cari.com, Nuff Nang, and other social networking
websites.

The online platform includes components for travel packages, hotel and
flight bookings, and other travel-related technology integral to the entire
supply chain of the tourism industry.

The platform was created by Creative Advances Technology Sdn Bhd
(CAT) which is also the developer of VirtualMalaysia.com, the official e-tourism
portal for the Ministry of Tourism.

CAT has been an e-business catalyst for the Malaysian tourism industry since
its establishment nine years ago.
-- BERNAMA