CUMBRIA'S busiest tourist attraction is taking advantage of the pound's weakness to target international visitors.

A team from Windermere Lake Cruises will be attending a series of international trade missions, large-scale travel trade events and high-profile meetings this autumn to fly the flag for the Lake District.

There are 1.5m passenger journeys on Windermere Lake Cruises' vessels each year, and around a fifth are visitors from outside the UK.

In the past 12 months, 39 countries have booked tickets through the company’s website, a 17 per cent increase on the year before.

The latest international sales drive comes as sterling remains weak in the aftermath of the EU referendum.

The pound plunged to a 31-year low against the US dollar and fell against the euro, Japanese yen and other major currencies. This makes it cheaper, and therefore more attractive, for visitors from overseas to come to the UK.

The Lake Cruises' team starts its sales push by visiting overseas tour operators based in London and will also visit the World Travel Market event at ExCeL London in November.

The company is preparing staff to fly to Japan as part of the Lake District Japan Forum’s 10-day delegation to Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo.

A separate trade mission to China and Korea is planned for November while the Lake District China Forum plans to bring Chinese executives to Cumbria this autumn.