President Bill Clinton has spoken at the annual 2012 GBTA Convention in Boston.

The president was welcomed by attendees from all over the globe and discussed the current globalised political and economic landscape, his William J. Clinton Foundation and Clinton Health Access Initiative work and what it takes to succeed in today’s world.

“The future looks good for business travel,” said Clinton.

Discussing the need to exchange ideas and meet face to face to spur innovations that address health and environmental issues he said: “We live in the most interdependent period and we have to ask ourselves, how we can become more competitive?”

He continued: “What works in the modern world is cooperation and networking. Debates are healthy but it can’t be seen as a weakness to cooperate.” 

President Clinton’s appearance this year was sponsored by Boeing.

The president spoke at the GBTA Convention in 2009 and returned again this year along with President George W. Bush who spoke at Convention the previous day.

This was the first time two United States Presidents participated making GBTA Convention history.

GBTA concluded the event breaking attendance records announcing 1,475 travel buyers attended the 2012 GBTA Convention with 6,671 attendees total, making this one of the largest GBTA Conventions in history and one of the largest gatherings of travel professionals in the world.

Next year’s event will be in San Diego, CA on August 4th-7th, 2013.