Peter Myers is not fond of heights, and 24 years as a banker in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Yorkshire did not prepare him for a Ray Mears-style walk on the wild side.

But over the past couple of years, the 46-year-old recently-appointed chief executive of Welcome To Yorkshire’s West Yorkshire Tourist Partnership has been called upon to trap, skin and cook a rabbit and walk the plank above a steep drop.

This was nothing to do with those prescriptive outward bound team-bonding exercises for young executives – Peter volunteered.

When he is not wearing his business suit and thinking how to encourage more business and leisure tourism in the Bradford district, he is training RAF cadets to handle weapons responsibly and how to handle themselves in the wilderness.

He says: “I started out at the bottom in October, 2007, while I was a banking executive. Now I’m a non-commissioned officer. I’ve just qualified as a basic expedition leader.”

What appears to be a lurch towards a Boy’s Own lifestyle associated with Ray Mears and Bear Grylls flows out of a lifelong passion for athletics.

“In 2002, I was ninth in the triathlon in the World Masters Games in Melbourne – running, cycling and swimming non-stop for about two hours. Before that, I represented Oxfordshire in athletics ten times,” he adds.

Many people would get a kick out of watching a banker suffer for two hours, but Peter said the credit crunch was nothing to do with the organisation he worked for – the National Australia Bank – before leaving his job in August.

“My employer wanted me to go back to Australia, but I didn’t want that. I was really keen to do something different that would help me become more of a pillar of a local business community, rather than a globe-trotter,” he says.

“My daughters, Rachel and Laura, were training with the Royal Ballet in Birmingham or Leeds every Saturday, and my wife Janet was working as a corporate fundraiser for Northern Ballet in Leeds,” he adds.

And on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, he was helping to train RAF cadets at Oakwood in North Leeds, in addition to the monthly weapons training sessions on the Army range at Strensall, outside York.

For him, these were compelling reasons not to uproot the family home at Alwoodley for a life Down Under.

“I like challenges, I like doing things that are different,” he says.

What difference does he think his extra-curricular activities have made to his business life?

“Flexibility, challenging your fears – understanding what it means to challenge your fears – empathising more without allowing this to compromise your decision-making,” he says.

Yet for all this strenuous physical activity, Peter comes across as different to his publicly-ebullient boss, the marathon-running Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome To Yorkshire. “Gary is very much out there. I am prepared to come in quietly and turn up the temperature. I like working with Gary I must admit, although it’s early days,” says Peter.

Before the year is out he is intending to make changes to the way the West Yorkshire Tourist Partnership operates, implementing Welcome To Yorkshire’s corporate drive to make tourism a more effective weapon in the battle against economic recession.

This will include boosting Bradford and the rest of West Yorkshire’s tourism potential through culture and the arts, among other things.

“Leeds has its own opera and ballet companies; Bradford has Haworth, the world heritage site of Saltaire and the UNESCO City of Film; Wakefield has its sculpture park,” he says.

Every year tourism brings £2.2 billion into Yorkshire – £514m into the Bradford district. The plan is to boost that by five per cent a year over three years. Now that would make a difference.