I’m delighted to be the Tourism Minister.
Mark Twain wrote in 1904 that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts”.
I’m not actually sure about that. Most people are probably looking for something rather less highfalutin than having their prejudices and bigotries removed. A fortnight in the sun perhaps. A chance to chill out.
But I have to confess I owe a great deal to travel. One of my father’s first jobs was working in a hotel in Salou on the Costa Brava in the 1950s – which is where he met my mother, when she was, as a BBC makeup artist, on holiday. So, quite literally, I reckon I owe my existence to the tourism industry.
That’s just…
