World travel industry to examine recovery in forthcoming Summit in Doha, Qatar

The tourism industry's recovery, world public health issues, new ways of doing tourism business, and new economic trends in the tourism industry will be high on the agenda when the world's tourism leaders arrive in Qatar for the Fourth Global Tourism and Travel Summit in May.

More than 500 chief executive officers, general managers and directors of the world's leading and largest tourism companies and government ministers will attend the Global Summit in Doha from May 1-3, that is being hosted by Qatar Airways.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Mr Akbar Al Baker said today that the Summit agenda was designed to encourage lively discussion amongst the leaders of the travel industry in order to drive change, as the industry recovers from recent international events.

"The Global Summit will provide the forum for some of the most influential people in the tourism industry to discuss priorities for change within the industry," said Mr Al Baker.

"The Summit format will allow for a set of interactive debates which will be moderated by internationally renowned journalists and presenters like the BBC's Nik Gowing and NBC's Peter Greenberg," said Mr Al Baker.

The World Travel and Tourism Council's President Mr Jean-Claude Baumgarten said: "Our intention is to inject dynamism and spontaneity in to all the issues.

"However, more than that we want the outcome of the Fourth Global Travel and Tourism Summit to be an expression of what the industry considers to be the main challenges it faces and a consensus view on the changes that will be required to nuture the green shoots of recovery in 2004," said Mr Baumgarten.

Mr Baugarten said that the major questions that will be debated include:

· What are the latest global trends and what impact will they have?

· What are the best strategies for the changing environment?

· What are the main challenges faced by governments and how will they be met?

· What can be done on an industry level to improve customer experiences?

· In the face of bad news, how do we prevent unnecessary panic?