Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Wednesday the 5th of November, and I'm thrilled to be talking to Stephanie Peacock. She is the Minister for Sport, Tourism, Civil Society and Newt. And of course, the one I'm particularly interested in minister is tourism.

You've recently taken over this role just four weeks or so ago.

What's your pitch?

Yeah, well, I'm delighted to join you this afternoon.

And of course, it's fantastic that we're meeting here at the Excel where the world travel market is taking place.

As you rightly point out, I'm very new in Surrell just a few weeks.

But I've been really keen to get to know the sector as quickly as I can. And today is obviously

a great opportunity as a sort of everyone who's really involved in this sector is here and at

one route. I think my vision is to be really clear that Britain's open for business, that we're

a world leader in tourism,

that we've got so much for people to see. My predecessor, Chris Bryant, was very passionate about

the sector, and he of course goes to the business department. He'll be here on Thursday.

And so I think there's so much opportunity here up and down the country. He set an ambitious

target of 50 million visitors by 2030. I want to go

a bit further than that and break it down and think about actually those 50 million. Of course London's

a global city. It's a wonderful city and we're really showcasing it here this week. But I want

to go further about thinking about that regional growth, about the opportunities that we've got up

and down the country and the tourist offer across the UK. Well, you're the MP for Barnsley South.

I think that part of South Yorkshire is very, very much overlooked.

You're going to be promoting that region specifically?

Well, of course, as the MP for Vansey South,

I'm always very proud to be promoting my local area.

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