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27/05/2005: "Cleaning N.Ireland's Tarnished Image"
BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Once renowned worldwide for bombs, bullets and bigotry, Northern Ireland is doggedly rebuilding its tarnished image and now boasts more than two million visitors a year.
At the height of the Irish Republican Army's campaign to oust Britain from the province, working for the Tourist Board ranked as one of the most unenviable in the travel business. But now, cashing in on the low cost airline boom to attract city break visitors from across Europe, the tourist industry has ambitious targets.
"We need to get their spend up but we topped the magic two million mark last year and are aiming for seven percent growth this year," said Northern Ireland Tourist Board chief executive Alan Clarke.
"We have nine more air routes coming in here from Europe this year. All this helps to build up confidence in Northern Ireland," he told Reuters. "Of course we started from a low base but it is going in the right direction."
The 1998 Good Friday accord brought an uneasy peace to the province where more than 3,600 people died in 30 years of sectarian violence between Protestants and Catholics.
But efforts to sustain a local assembly have still not succeeded. Its 1997 ceasefire may be holding but the IRA has still not pledged to lay down its arms forever. Tourists, however, seem not to worry. Visitors from Britain have risen by 50 percent since 2000 and Ireland, with its booming Celtic Tiger economy, is a real tourist gold mine on the province's doorstep if more Emerald Isle visitors can be tempted northwards.
The Dublin and Belfast tourist boards now work together in marketing and promotion and Clarke said: "This is one of the most tangible results of the peace agreement." Long gone are the days when the only images beamed around the world from Northern Ireland were of death and destruction.
"Our surveys show that when visitors get here, they do feel safe. We have work to do but we want to be in the news for the right reasons, not the wrong ones," he said. "Tourism is a real barometer of economic confidence."
Even its bloody past is proving to be a boom with sharp-eyed local entrepreneurs laying on "Troubles Tours" to show visitors the troublespots of Belfast where rioters once pelted police with petrol bombs and sectarian killings abounded. That is fine by Clarke. "You try to meet customer needs and people want to know what happened here and why. I think there are now about half a dozen groups organising tours in Belfast."
City breaks, golf, fishing and some of the most unspoilt scenery on the island of Ireland are proving to be real tourist magnets. But Clarke is keen to beef up the heritage attractions and 2012 offers a convenient target to aim for.
That marks the centenary of the Titanic being launched from Belfast for its brief career as the world's most famous ocean liner before being sunk on its maiden voyage by an iceberg.
Eager to cash in on the box office success of the Titanic film, plans are now afoot to develop a visitor centre in the docks where the doomed liner was built. In a surreal celebration of Belfast's industrial heritage, artist Rita Duffy is planning in 2008 to tow an iceberg from north of Norway into Belfast.
She believes the iceberg would represent a dramatic piece of "performance art" as it slowly melted in Belfast Lough.
(this article was taken from cnn.com)
