A record number of delegates, international delegations, speakers and media will form the World Travel & Tourism Council Global Summit to be held in Seville, Spain, this week.

Over 1,500 delegates will participate in the most important tourism event of the year.

Every year, WTTC, which represents the global private sector of tourism, holds its Global Summit in a different city around the world.

The 2019 WTTC Global Summit will take place in Seville, Spain, on April 2nd-4th and will be hosted by Ayuntamiento of Seville, Turismo Andaluz and Turespaña.

The Global Summit will be centred on the theme of Changemakers.

The tourism leaders will celebrate the 500th anniversary of the departure of the first circumnavigation of the world, which set out from Seville, while shaping the future of our sector.

Gloria Guevara, president, WTTC, said: “The WTTC Global Summit will be the most important tourism event of 2019 and fitting recognition of a sector which contributed 10.4 per cent to global GDP last year and supported 319 million jobs across the world last year.

“A record number of delegates as well as private-sector leaders, government delegations and journalists from around the world will define and shape the future of our sector and recognise the ideas which will make it happen.

“The Global Summit will put the global tourism spotlight on Seville, Andalucia and Spain.

“Our delegates together control hundreds of billions of euros of investment and anyone wanting to know what the future of our sector looks like should come to the WTTC Global Summit.”

The World Travel & Tourism Council is the body which represents the tourism private sector globally.

The organisation has a history of 25 years of research to quantify the economic impact of the sector in 185 countries.

Tourism is a key driver for investment and economic growth globally.

The sector contributes US$8.8 trillion or 10.4 per cent of global GDP, and accounts for 319 million jobs or one in ten of all jobs on the planet.