The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) aims to spark the sector's recovery when it hosts its 20th Global Summit in Cancun, Mexico from March 23-25, 2021.
The world's first physical/virtual hybrid summit will be held at The Moon Palace Convention Centre with the latest leading hygiene and safety protocols-including COVID-19 testing and regular health checks-in place to combat the potential spread of coronavirus.
WTTC's 20th Global Summit was scheduled to take place in Cancun this past April after being moved from San Juan, Puerto Rico but was postponed in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new format will include invitations to the live event, with restricted capacity and outdoor sessions to ensure physical distancing. Travel professionals will also be able to attend virtually as there will be some 20,000 online free registrations available. Attendees can look forward to a wide range of international guest speakers and special breakout sessions. Notable previous speakers have included former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton; former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, former President of Argentina Mauricio Macri and former President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso.
"Every aspect of the 20th WTTC Global Summit is being explored to ensure it complies with the world's best available health and hygiene protocols to show with best practice, how major conferences can be held safely and securely in the new normal of the COVID-19 world," WTTC President and CEO Gloria Guevara said in a statement. "WTTC wants the Global Summit to learn from the challenges of the pandemic to showcase how we can use this experience to adapt to COVID-19 and lead the global travel and tourism sector back to recovery and save millions of jobs-and thousands of business large and small-which have been thrown into turmoil since the beginning of the year."
"The stakes in the travel and tourism sector could not be higher, so the WTTC platform provides an essential form for the very highest industry leaders and key government representatives to discuss and take action," she added.
WTTC will use the platform to reveal its major new initiatives for 2021, which will undoubtedly be a pivotal year for the travel and tourism sector.
"We must use the Global Summit to establish a consensus on international cooperation and coordination to accelerate the recovery, as well as public/private partnership and restore vital public confidence to travel safely once more," said Guevara. "The 2020 Global Summit will benefit and showcase not only Mexico but the wider regions of the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean."
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