Martin Craigs: "I’ve lived and worked in Asia for over 25 years.  And I’ve had the good fortune of seeing with my own eyes the total transformation of the Peoples Republic of China.  I first visited there in 1980, I lived in Hong Kong for nearly 20 years.  I work in ... manufacturers which gave me a great opportunity to see all around the area.  And I moved to Bangkok 15 months ago.  So in answer to your question, it is astonishing, the growth rates that we are seeing.  And research is one of PATA’s strengths.  Give you a couple of numbers, Asian last year was up to 89 million visitors into the 10 Asian countries, up 14.4%.  The outbound from China is continuing to grow at double digit.  And that is another opportunity, another gift horse that the UK is looking in the mouth.  There’s eight times more Chinese mainland shoppers go to Paris than London because of the barriers to entry that the British government put up for this industry.  I don’t know how they expect to get re-elected when they can’t create jobs, they really need to think about how they maintain their own jobs and start supporting, not taxing and harassing the one industry that creates jobs faster than any other.  I really just do not understand how an issue like airport passenger tax, departure tax, APD is not higher up the news agenda in Britain, when it is so symbolic of myopic hypocritical policies."

Martin Craigs: "Human beings like meeting in three dimensions.  Fine, we’re all fans of iPads and android devices and those cold dark screens.  What worries me is the next generation, which I thought was aptly described by Tyler Brule this weekend as the F generation, the flat-lining generation, the ones that think everything’s monosyllabic, and on a cold dark screen.  They need to get out more, smell the roses, meet people in three dimension because that’s what the travel and tourism is.  You know, the best two weeks of nearly everyone's life is the two weeks they come and visit our industry, when they’re having the holiday that they’ve worked all year for.  Why on earth do governments want to tax and harass that pleasure and mistake it for something like the negative effects of tobacco and alcohol, because in the minds of European politicians, we’re in that pigeonhole, alcohol, tobacco, tourism.  It deserves to be taxed and harassed, it’s a pleasure. Well sorry guys, we’re not all living in some century old protestant work ethic mind set that everyone has to be driven to only work and taxed if they have any pleasure, that’s what one of PATA’s main points."