WTTC Sets Partnership Theme for Tourism Summit
Members of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) met with the Brazilian Minister of Tourism Luiz Barretto, and Embratur’s President Jeanine Pires, along with high-level representatives of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina and other key business leaders, to unveil the theme of the Ninth Global Travel & Tourism Summit: “Real Partnerships - Energizing Economies.”
Speaking at the launch event, WTTC’s President and CEO Jean-Claude Baumgarten outlined WTTC’s provisional estimates for the industry’s economic impact in 2008 and 2009.
“The deterioration in the macroeconomic environment and the marked slowdown in the monthly indicators of tourism activity in the last months of 2008 resulted in a much more pronounced cycle in travel and tourism economy GDP than envisaged in January 2008,” Baumgarten said.
The global economic impact on travel and tourism will nevertheless be much greater in 2009. Travel and tourism economy GDP is now expected to contract this year, by around 3.5 percent, according to Baumgarten. Moreover, even this forecast –like macroeconomic prospects generally- carries downside risks.
The theme of the Ninth Global Travel & Tourism Summit, which will be held in Santa Catarina’s state capital, Florianopolis, from May 15 thru 16, is therefore all the more pertinent, and it has been acclaimed as an exemplary public-private partnership as it will bring together national, state and local governments from Brazil and other parts of the world, together with leaders of the private sector from every continent.
WTTC is the forum for business leaders in the travel and tourism industry. With chairs and chief executives of the world’s 100 foremost leading travel and tourism companies as its members, it has a unique mandate and overview on matters related to travel and tourism.
WTTC works to raise awareness of travel and tourism as one of the world’s largest industries, employing some 230 million people around the world and generating over 10 percent of global GDP.
