All Set for WTTC’s World Travel Summit in Brazil

The World Travel & Tourism Council will hold the Ninth Global Travel & Tourism Summit under the patronage of Brazil President Luiz Inazio Lula da Silva in Florianopolis, the capital of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, May 15 to 16. The event will be a forum for industry leaders and governments to meet to debate new forms of partnership to help stimulate the global economic recovery.

“Transforming Economies” and “Removing Barriers Towards Global Integration through Travel & Tourism” are two of the main themes of the summit. WTTC, a global business leaders’ forum comprising the presidents and chief executives of 100 leading travel and tourism companies around the world, is dedicated to the promotion of the economic importance of the sector, which generates 9 percent of global GDP and employs as many as 220 million people worldwide.

The summit’s program, organized under the theme Real Partnerships: Energizing Economies, featuring speakers from both the public and private sectors, will offer an opportunity to the global travel and tourism industry to create new forms of public-private sector partnership to restore confidence, which in turn will help kick-start demand and stimulate economic growth and employment, according to Jean-Claude Baumgarten, WTTC’s president and CEO.

One session will discuss changing values, with panelists debating the main value drivers of key stakeholders in tourism, and how they might evolve over the coming years. Among the speakers will be the keynote presentation on “No Time To Think” by the book’s authors, Charles Feldman and Howard Rosenberg, who will discuss the media’s ability to distort perspectives to an extent which influences global society, not only consumers but also governments and businesses.

The travel and tourism industry is already struggling to meet the challenges posed by the current economic and financial crisis. “And these have been exacerbated by the recent swine flu outbreak,” Baumgarten said, “so this year’s Global Travel & Tourism Summit in Brazil offers a timely opportunity for leaders from all sectors of travel and tourism and related industries to meet together in an ideal setting to discuss the challenges facing the industry and come up with innovative solutions.”