By Imtiaz Muqbil, Executive Editor, Travel Newswire, at the PATA Travel Mart in Macau SAR
PATA President and CEO Greg Duffell has submitted his resignation from the Pacific Asia Travel Association, effective February 2011. The move comes well short of his three-year contractual term which was due for completion at the end of 2011. Mr Duffell said he believes that the contentious and hugely thankless job he had been hired to do, basically “clean house” at PATA, had been done and that the job of “rebuilding the house” should now be done by someone else.
The move was greeted with some surprise at PATA which is now faced with the job of organising its 60th anniversary conference in Beijing in April 2011 with an on-the-way-out president. At the same time, however, PATA Chairman Hiran Cooray of Sri Lanka feels that if the organisation can have a new CEO in place fairly soon, the 60th anniversary event can still become a springboard for PATA to relaunch itself into a new era and deal with all the industry challenges shaping up in the second decade of the 21st century.
Mr Duffell, 49, officially took over in February 2009 after being confirmed by PATA board in Hyderabad in October 2008. In addition to external problems such as the global economic crisis at the time, he inherited an organisation that had become the victim of internal old-boys-club cronyism, lack of transparency and a top-down leadership style. The former management, with the support of several board members and former staffers, had sought to make PATA into an elitist rich-man’s club that was totally out of sync with the global shift towards more grassroots-based, democratic, transparent and participatory international institutions. It was bleeding money, losing members and becoming largely irrelevant in terms of dealing with issues facing travel & tourism.
Although he came in with the best of intentions, Mr Duffell soon found that executing an “agenda of change” was easier said than done. In no time, he got bogged down in the same old internal PATA politics, especially the parochial machinations of a small coterie of board members who seriously damaged his morale within a few weeks of him starting work. Soon after cancelling one of the crony contracts involving an Australian consultant, Mr Duffell found himself facing spurious allegations initiated by an Australian board member about misrepresenting his qualifications in applying for the job. Mr Duffell was eventually cleared but sorting out that issue alone took dozens of man-hours worth of unproductive time.
Nevertheless, Mr Duffell continued to work with another small group of supportive board members to perform heavy-duty internal surgery. During his term, he brought in a full-time finance director, which had been resisted by the former president and CEO Mr Peter de Jong, undertook some serious cost-cutting, made the expense-claims system more accountable and fired many underperforming staff. A new director of communications also took office. The website was revamped and relaunched.
His key senior staff provided him with blueprints to rewrite and update key articles of association. That paved the way to undertake a critical restructuring exercise: diluting the responsibilities of the former unwieldy 90-member board of directors. A smaller executive board runs internal housekeeping and administrative issues, while the bigger board deals with the less controversial big-picture industry issues. Sounds simple, but getting all the legal and administrative ducks in line was no cakewalk. It was made all the more difficult because Mr Duffell was exposed to some serious personal risks; he did not have a Thai work permit for nearly a year, thanks largely to the Thai government bureaucracy.
Throughout, Mr Duffell maintained an open-door policy with the media, noting that as he had nothing to hide and was not responsible for creating any of PATA’s problems, he had no reason to avoid the Press. He made no bones about his frustration with PATA politics and had all but confirmed that he would be moving on as soon as he could. PATA Vice Chairman Joao Manuel Costa Antunes reportedly asked him to stay on until after the April conference in Beijing but Mr Duffell is understood to have said that a few job offers are already under consideration which may require him to make the move by February 2011.
Although pulled back from the brink, the organisation still has to re-invent itself, regain its former reputation, and capitalise on the significant changes and opportunities in the world’s fastest-growing region. The PATA Travel Mart is facing stringent competition from the ITB Asia, the rapidly-emerging Singapore-based show organised by Messe Berlin. Both the PTM and the PATA conference are still largely dependent on the largesse of the host country; the Macau Government Tourist Office invested US$ 1 million in PTM 2010 and the Chinese tourism authorities are looking to make a huge impression with the 60th anniversary event in April. The Indian government will also be pulling out all stops for the 2011 PTM in New Delhi next September.
The most critical area of PATA funding, membership, is awaiting the finalisation of a report from PATA’s former Asia Division Director Renton de Alwis who was tasked with coming up with ways to better deliver membership services, make PATA more relevant, attract younger members and boost the chapters network. Another key area, the former Strategic Intelligence Centre, now known as the office of Strategy & Management, is seriously under-performing largely due to the health problems of its Managing Director Mr John Koldowski.
PATA staff members were informed of Mr Duffell’s departure at a hastily-called meeting 16 Sept evening. Most of them were unaware of it and stunned by the announcement. The executive board members were officially informed 17 Sept morning. The search has now begun for a replacement. Chairman Hiran Cooray said he would like to find someone as soon as possible. An announcement is due out immediately within the PATA fold, especially the chapters, to see who would be interested in taking up the challenge, pretty much at short notice.
Secretary-Treasurer Anthony Wong of Malaysia said he was sorry to see Mr Duffell leaving early but complimented him for doing a good job under some difficult circumstances. He said he understood perfectly why Mr Duffell, having come from the private sector, wanted to go back. “In private companies, you report to one or two people at the most. But in PATA there are too many of them. One board member wants this and another board member wants that. Both pay their dues. So who is the CEO to listen to?”
One senior PATA veteran said that the biggest hurdle the association will have to overcome is the long-standing “system” under which PATA staff spend an extraordinary amount of time servicing board members, including preparing the papers and presentations. “They need to be spending more time servicing members, not the board members,” said the industry veteran. “This is not the staff’s fault. It’s just a legacy from the old days. It needs to be changed.”
Mr Wong said Mr Duffell’s early departure is “learning experience for both sides.” He said the board members share much of the blame but now have to urgently find a replacement who is technologically savvy, young, able to work well with the largely Thai staff and has the personality to be taken seriously on the world stage. Some names already are being bandied around but most are “old-guard” members who may bring with them the two most important liabilities of this job – an attitude problem and baggage from past connections with PATA members.
The past two years have been critical for the survival of PATA, which is still in recovery mode. There is still a significant reservoir of goodwill and an even higher level of commitment among the old-guard to ensure that the association gets back on track. This is partly for nostalgic and sentimental reasons as well as the fact that the board members will have only themselves to blame if the association collapses. If they can learn the lessons of the past, and accept responsibility for their self-inflicted mistakes, they may still find it possible to find an energetic and committed new CEO ready, able and willing to help it regain its former glory.
