India on Pacific Area Travel Association

January 24, 1966

India on Pacific Area Travel Association

A commemorative postage stamp on 15^th Annual Conference of the Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA), a membership association to promote responsible development of travel and tourism in Asia Pacific region :

Issued by India

Issued on Jan 24, 1966

Issued for : The P&T Department will issue a special postage stamp on the 24^th January, 1966 to commemorate the Fifteenth Annual Conference of PATA, to be held in New Delhi.

Type : Stamp, Mint Condition

Colour : Gray

Denomination : 0.15

Overall Size : 3.34 X 2.88 cms.

Printing Size : 2.99 X 2.52 cms.

Perforation : 14 x 13½

Watermark : Printed on unwatermarked paper

Number Printed : 20,00,000

Number per issue sheet : 42

Printing Process : Photogravure

Designed and Printed at : India Security Press

About :

The Fifteenth Annual Conference of the Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA) will be held in New Delhi from January 24 to 29, 1966. The Conference will be preceded by a two-day seminar on tourism.
PATA is an important international organisation whose main objective is to develop, promote and facilitate travel to and within areas of the Pacific and the Orient.
It was the initiative of Louis Thurston, a leading newspaper publisher of Honolulu, that brought PATA into existence in 1951 with 44 founder members. PATA’s first Conference was held in January 1952 in Honolulu and in 1953 its headquarters were established in San Francisco. The promotional activities of PATA are centralised in the Executive Director who functions in accordance with the policies laid down at Annual Conferences. A forty-member Board of Directors is elected every year from among PATA’s 750 members, which includes representatives of national travel organisations, air and steamship lines, leading hotels, publishers with special interest in travel, travel agencies and organisations with active interest in the Pacific travel industry. The President is always elected from among the active government members of the area in which the annual conference is held.
PATA is primarily interested in promotion of travel to the Pacific area from the U.S.A. & Europe. In this it is aided by the various PATA branches, particularly those in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. Paid media advertising, regular release of travel stories and feature articles to newspapers, photo and editorial contests and all other recognised devices of sales promotion are employed by PATA to promote tourism in the Pacific area. Besides, PATA publishes its own monthly magazine, Pacific Travel News, which is widely distributed among members of the travel Industry.
India, which was only an associate member since 1957, became a full-fledged active member of PATA in 1984. At the 13^th Annual Conference held in Sydney, India invited PATA to hold its 15^th Session in New Delhi. This invitation was accepted at the 14^th Conference in 1965 and India’s Director General of Tourism was elected the year’s President of PATA.