Renton de Alwis Returns to Aid PATA Membership Drive

Former Pacific Asia Travel Association executive Renton de Alwis is to return to the Association in a short-term advisory role at the invitation of Association CEO Greg Duffell to offer expert advice on membership retention, recruitment and chapter development.

de Alwis, a former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board, most recently served a second term in that capacity and went into a life of active social activism and work living in a rural environment in the Deep South of Sri Lanka. He was until recently operating as the executive director of Sustainable Development Consultants (Pvt) Ltd and is also a former CEO/Secretary General of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. He has held several senior advisory positions with the Sri Lankan government in the areas of tourism, communications and human resource development.

Renton de Alwis, first joined PATA in the capacity of Director of Member Services and became the Vice-President Asia based in Singapore in the 1990s and also served as CEO/Secretary General of the National Association of Travel Agents, Singapore at the invitation of the Singapore Tourist Board.

His specialist advisory roles have included being marketing specialist in an international consulting team for the ADB Master Plan preparation project for the Greater Mekong sub-region (2002-03); Yunnan Province of China's Master Plan Project funded by the UNDP/WTO (1999); Chief Technical Advisor of the UNDP Partnership for Quality TourismProject in Nepal (1996/07); Pioneer Advisor of the ADB South Asian-Sub-regional Economic Cooperation's (SASEC) Tourism sector project (2000); Chairman/facilitator of the Bhutan Tourism Forum (2002); and Chairman of the PATA Task Force on Macau Tourism and Aviation Development (2002).

He has authored two books and continues to be a regular weekly columnist with Sri Lanka’s two leading newspapers; the ‘Daily News’ and the ‘Daily Financial Times’. Covering socio-political-economic issues and tourism, his column theme titles are ‘Back to Basics’ and ‘Out of the Box’.

See other recent news regarding: Airlines, Airports, Awards, Flights, Codeshare, Lounges, First Class, Business Class, MICE, GDS, Rewards, Miles, Hotels, Apartments, Promotions, Spas, New Hotels, Traffic, Visitor Arrivals, Cruises, Free Deals, Videos, Renton de Alwis, PATA