"[3] The meeting was planned for the first week of June 1951, but replies to the invitations sent by Hawaii's territorial governor Ingram Stainback did not arrive in time and the conference was postponed until January 10–15, 1952.

Represented were tourism and transportation companies from Alaska, Australia, Canada, Fiji, Guam, Hawaii, Japan, New Zealand, Philippine Islands, Samoa, Tahiti and the United States.

Considered as the state of “money and influence”, San Francisco was home to an influential group of individuals who served on the PATA board and committees during the 1950s and 1960s.

The report quickly became a blueprint for many NTO and travel planners, as it methodically presented the economic benefits – both direct and indirect – derived from tourism.

[3] The 1960s also witnessed PATA's first move towards promoting education and training, helping to set up the School of TIM (Tourism Industry Management) at the University of Hawaii – the first such institution to be established in the region.

At the 23rd Annual Conference, held in Jakarta in 1974, it was decided that there should be a change of emphasis in PATA's function to enable more support for the developmental aspects of tourism within the Pacific area, particularly in industry, education and training.

This advisory body would be composed of experts from diverse backgrounds and specialisations, whose purpose would be to carry out the association's intentions towards heritage conservation, education and training, and environmental enhancement.

The TOT Director General proposed Chiang Mai as an ideal location for the development of tourism and so PATA sent a travel trade mission – or 'task force' as they later became known – to the northern city.

[3] The foundation sought assistance from PATA Chapters in carrying out is work, including the production of professional papers on handicraft preservation, area-wide inventories of heritage assets, and conservation programs for endangered wildlife.

Following the Gulf War, PATA created the Accelerated Marketing Program (AMP), designed to support member destinations affected by conflict.

17 April 2001: Kuala Lumpur– The new Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) chairman, John Sanford, has pledged to stay committed to sustainable tourism.

It came in response to the battering the travel industry and economies in the region had taken due to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bali bombs and SARS.

2004 saw PATA change its Mission Statement to include tourism ‘to, from and within’ Asia Pacific, thereby recognizing the importance of the region as a growing outbound market.

In partnership with PATA's private and public sector members, we enhance the sustainable growth, value and quality of travel and tourism to, from and within the region’.

In 2012, at the Annual General Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, PATA launched PATAmPOWER, which was an enhancement of the Travel Intelligence Graphic Architecture (TIGA) initiative redeveloped in HTML5, to enable use by mobile devices.

The objective of PATAmPOWER is to be your one stop for data about the Asia Pacific visitor economy, improving productivity, providing faster insights and enabling smarter decisions.

It aims to monitor the far-reaching impact of travel and tourism across national economies, in order to encourage better and more comprehensive policy responses from governments in support of the sector.

The site, a new online tool for information on sustainable and socially responsible travel and tourism issues, is supported in part by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development BMZ, implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and by EarthCheck.

The conference explored the key influences that will drive and shape future thinking in terms of tourism destination development, design, access and marketing.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by PATA CEO Mario Hardy and IGLTA President/CEO John Tanzella at World Travel Market in London, United Kingdom on Thursday November 5, 2015.

One of the first activities of the newly signed partnership was to combine efforts to encourage buyers, sellers and conference delegates to connect with leading industry travel bloggers at the PATA Adventure Travel and Responsible Tourism Conference and Mart 2016 in Chiang Rai, Thailand from February 17–19, 2016 at the Dusit Island Resort Chiang Rai.

The specific objectives of this partnership include the mutual support and endorsement of both organisations as well as collaboration in awareness building and knowledge sharing on related issues.