The international travel and tourism industry's annual summit opened in northern Japan Monday, as the sector moves to recover from a year filled with economic turbulence and natural disasters.

The four-day Global Summit, organised by the World Travel & Tourism Council, hosted delegates in the city of Sendai, an area that was devastated by last year's quake-tsunami disaster, which hammered Japan's tourism industry.

Choosing Sendai was "fitting... to show solidarity on behalf of the entire travel and tourism industry with both the country and the region affected," the Council said in a statement.

The second half of the summit, which ends Thursday, will be held in Tokyo. This is the event's 12th edition after Las Vegas hosted it last year.

"The last 12 months have been exceptionally turbulent," the Council said, citing the European debt crisis, global political and economic instability and "wildly fluctuating" currency and commodity prices.

The summit, with nearly 1,000 delegates, was aiming to "tackle some of the most pressing issues facing travel and tourism and to set the agenda for the future health of the industry," it said.

The travel and tourism industry was worth about $6.3 trillion last year, accounting for 255 million jobs globally, the Council said.