Skal International world president Hulya Aslantas visits Bali to honor the largest Skal club in southeast Asia

BALI (eTN) – SKAL International president Hulya Aslantas visited Bali to honor Bali’s 150-member SKAL club as the largest club in southeast Asia.

Skal is about “Doing Business among friends.” Skal International, with 20,000 members, is the largest organization of tourism professionals in the world. Skal encourages and creates a network of professionals around the world. It promotes seminars and conferences to strengthen the industry’s professionalism.

Hulya Aslantas, in her address to the Skal Bali luncheon at The Laguna Resort & Spa in Nusa Dua, Bali, congratulated the Bali club members, who have made Bali a vibrant and dynamic club, the largest in southeast Asia and a world leader in membership growth. President Hulya encouraged Skal Bali to closely cooperate with the Skal network to promote this ideal destination throughout the world.

She further commented: “As you may know, I have chosen ‘Bridging the Cultures’ as my presidential theme. The members of Skål International form a very rich mosaic, representing different parts of the world. Skål provides us with the ideal platform of knowing various cultures closely, which can only help to eliminate prejudices and understand each other much better. As leaders of world tourism, based on this friendship, I am also confident that we must work very closely together to continue improving the standards of our profession, ethics, quality, and environment for sustainable development and world peace; the two preconditions for healthy growth in the tourism industry.”

Urs Klee, Skal International Bali president, welcomed president Hulya Aslantas and husband Cem to Bali during a dinner with the Skal Bali board of directors at the St. Regis Resort on Thursday, August 27 and was also her host at the lunch at The Laguna that drew a record number of 125 Skal Bali members and guests. “We are much honored to be able to welcome president Hulya to the ‘Island of the Gods,’” he said. “It means a lot to our members to know that Skal International recognizes the importance of our fast-growing club and we appreciate that president Hulya was able to include Bali in her very busy itinerary.”

ABOUT SKAL

Skal is a professional organization of tourism leaders around the world, promoting global tourism and friendship. It is the only international group uniting all branches of the travel and tourism industry. Its members, the industry’s managers, and executives meet at local, national, regional, and international levels to discuss and pursue topics of common interest.

The first club was founded in 1932 in Paris by travel managers, following an educational tour of Scandinavia. The idea of international goodwill and friendship grew and, in 1934, the “Association Internationale des Skal Clubs” was formed with Florimond Volckaert as its first president, who is considered the “Father of Skal.”

Skal International today has approximately 22,000 members in 480 clubs throughout 89 nations. Most activities occur at the local level, moving up through national committees, under the umbrella of Skal International, headquartered at the General Secretariat in Torremolinos, Spain.

Membership of Skal is open to managers or executives directly involved in tourism management, sales, and promotions; and in specified travel and tourism businesses, including: transportation, travel and tour operators and agencies, tourism organizations, governments, and non-government tourism councils, hotels, convention centres, spas, golf courses, and travel media.

SKAL CLUB BALI

Skal Club Bali was formed in 1991. Through the continuous enthusiastic drive of the committee in gaining more active members, the club currently has 150 active members and is the biggest Skal club in southeast Asia.

Monthly Skal lunch gatherings are held on the first Friday of every month in various hotels and restaurants. While enjoying the sumptuous gastronomic specially-prepared food by the team of chefs, a detailed agenda of tourism updates are also being shared amongst the members.

The Annual Christmas Ball, which will be held on December 12, 2009 at Grand Hyatt Bali, is the signature event of the Skal year.