Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Monday the 29th of December.

I'm back with Paul Charles, Chief Executive of the PC Agency to look ahead at 2026.

Paul, first of all, what's on your personal radar for 2026? Well, thank you, Simon, and merry festive period again to everybody.

I think for 2026, I'm really optimistic, actually, because we're seeing technology now improve

our travel experience, whether you go through an airport and its facial recognition,

whether you get on a train and the Wi-Fi is getting faster,

yes, believe it or not, that's even starting to happen in the UK,

or whether you are just experiencing faster travel through using less paperwork,

because that's dying out too, those are things that actually make from a frequent travel point of view the experience

much more palatable, much better than ever before. So that's what I'm most excited about. Can we look

at specific destinations? I'm particularly keen on rail travel, for example, and heading over to Europe,

we're seeing great improvements in the, certainly the Spanish rail network which is superb Italy also looking good Germany fantastic

opportunities there is rail from your point of view surveying the globe is that increasingly

significant yes and I think rail needs to improve and need point of view surveying the globe, is that increasingly significant?

Yes, and I think rail needs to improve and needs to have much further investment put into it.

And thankfully, we're seeing that led by, as you say, the Spanish, the French, Germans and Italy.

I think it's important because not only does it keep the airlines on their toes

with rail snapping at their heels in terms of quality of service often,

which is often very good on rail,

but also it keeps the lid on prices.

And whilst rail sometimes can be more expensive than you might imagine,

it undoubtedly keeps airlines pricing capped in some way.

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