The highly-anticipated World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) 20th Global Summit, will now take place in April – one month later than the originally planned date. The Global Summit is being organised in partnership with the government of Quintana Roo in Mexico and will be held in Cancun, Mexico on 25-27 April.

WTTC, which represents the global tourism private sector, has taken the decision to move its Global Summit from March into April to coincide with the expected relaxation of travel restrictions and the beginning of the sector’s recovery. While Cancun is ready to host the Global Summit now, the international organisation is confident that rescheduling the event will enable more international participants to take part and help lead the sector into recovery.

The Global Summit will be a fantastic opportunity to showcase what both Mexico and Cancun have to offer as a destination, along with the world-class health and safety protocols that have been implemented to host such an event. The summit will take place using a hybrid format, allowing those unable to travel to benefit from the content virtually.

WTTC’s annual Global Summit is the most important Travel & Tourism event in the calendar, where the highest-level industry leaders meet with key government leaders to act on the biggest and most important issues across the global agenda.

Gloria Guevara, WTTC president and CEO, said: “While Cancun is ready to host our Global Summit as planned, we believe that moving the event back by just a few weeks will enable people from many more regions around the world to attend in beautiful Cancun, one of the most popular destinations in the world. As the global vaccination rollout picks up pace and with international mobility rules expected to be relaxed over the coming weeks, more people from key regions will be able to participate and add to the conversation for the path to recovery.”

Those unable to attend the event in person will be able to join virtually from anywhere in the world. The travel sector has been devasted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 174m jobs impacted, making our Global Summit more relevant and important than ever.

WTTC also wants to showcase how we can use this experience to adapt to COVID-19 and lead the global travel sector back to recovery and restore millions of jobs and livelihoods which have been thrown into turmoil since the beginning of last year.