Mr. Peter Semone Chairman of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

He is a leading tourism expert in Asia and the Pacific. Over the past four and a half years, Peter served as Chief of Party of the USAID-funded Tourism for All project in Timor-Leste. The $15 million project has improved the business enabling environment for micro and small enterprises; established a pipeline of tourism-related public private partnership; formed four tourism associations; implemented a successful domestic tourism campaign to counter the negative effects of COVID-19; and gained the country’s first UNESCO recognition.

Previously, Peter served as Chief Technical Adviser and Team Leader for projects in Lao PDR and Vietnam and has frequently been called upon as a short-term expert to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and other international development groups such as ADB, AUSAID, GIZ, ILO, NZAID, USAID and World Bank Group.

Peter was recently elected Chairman of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) for the period 2022-2024. Over 20+ years of engagement with PATA, Peter has served in a variety of leadership roles.

Following university studies in US East Coast Ivy League colleges (UPENN and Cornell), Peter founded a destination management company that provided shore logistics services to cruise ships at ports-of-call throughout Indonesia and participated as an entrepreneur in several start-ups. He authored a study on cruise tourism development in the South Pacific and river cruise development along the Mekong River. Recently, he advised Timor-Leste on how to improve its cruise operations.

He is widely published in peer-reviewed journals on topics related to tourism development and destination human capital. In his free time, Peter enjoys lecturing at colleges and universities and spending time with his family in Bali and California. He is currently Adjunct Professor at Taylor’s University in Malaysia.