The Lisbon Tourism Summit 2020, an initiative of the Beta-i consulting company with the support of Turismo de Portugal, will take place online on September 30th to discuss sustainable tourism and solutions for the post-pandemic.

The theme for this year's edition is “What is impacting the tourism and travel industry nowadays?”. Throughout the day topics such as sustainability, recovery in the "new normal", circular economy and energy efficiency, mobility and travel experience, as well as digital transformation, big data and artificial intelligence will be addressed.

Beta-i co-founder and CEO stresses the importance of the event and says “this summit is now more relevant than ever, given the challenges facing the industry. Not only has the Covid-19 pandemic had an unprecedented impact, requiring urgent adaptation and innovation, but climate change, of which tourism is a victim and contributor, has changed consumer habits. It is therefore essential to bring together entrepreneurs and researchers in the same "place" to rethink the future, restore traveller’s confidence and contribute to a more sustainable and circular model”.

Rita Marques, Secretary of State for Tourism, will preside the opening ceremony, which will be followed by several national and international speakers. Leyla Acaroglu, sustainability designer, business sociologist and United Nations “Champion of the Earth” Award winner, Dirk Glaesser, Director for Sustainable Development from World Tourism Organization (WTO), Manuel Dias, director tech sales and AI ambassador at Microsoft, Felipe Ávila da Costa, co-founder and CEO Infraspeak, Pedro São Simão, member of the Board of the Association and Coordinator of the Portuguese Pact for Plastics, Tiago Araújo, co-founder and CEO of HiJiffy and Pedro Teixeira, director of Quality, Environment and Safety at Neya Hotels are some of the other speakers already confirmed.

Participation in the Lisbon Tourism Summit is totally free and gives access to workshops dedicated to areas such as business innovation, of circular economy models implementation and data science related to tourism, as well as initiatives for community engagement. Those interested should register at https://lisbontourismsummit.com, where they can also find the detailed programme of the event.