Greetings from Buenos Aires (BA), my first trip to this beautiful, charming, welcoming city. I hope you have also been doing some positive activations during Earth Month.I am here attending The World Travel & Tourism Council’s (WTTC) 18^th Global Summit with 800 other delegates from across the globe. It has been a very impactful few days and I participated in robust dialogues with other industry leaders and notable speakers. This year’s theme is: “Our People, Our World, Our Future”. The Summit asked challenging questions facing our travel industry today and how we can work together towards a more sustainable future.

Here are some of the 2017 key statistics of our great industry:

• 1.3 billion travelers crossed international borders
• 4.0 billion air travelers
• 313 million jobs supported by Travel & Tourism
• 1 in every 5 jobs were created last year by Travel & Tourism
• 10.4% Travel & Tourism contribution to global GDP
• 4.6 % Travel & Tourism GDP growth (vs 3% total GDP growth, so our industry grew 50% more)

WTTC was started over 25 years ago to get leaders of our disparate industry to work together to speak with one voice to governments to enunciate the importance and scale of our industry, and its importance to all economies and more recently as a force for good and peace, to help ensure governments support and encourage tourism.

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