Belfast, bombs, bullets and balaclavas. The alliteration trips off the tongue when describing the city. After 30 years of violence it is hard to credit that Belfast was once known as the Athens of the North or to give credence to the novelist, George Birmingham's proud statement: "I was born in Belfast and brought up to believe that, like St Paul, I am a citizen of no mean city."

Gradually, however, a new "V" word is replacing "violence" in the lexicon: "vision". The peace process has given a new impetus to those who wish to promote a city defined by its citizens and not by its killers.

The Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau is promoting and marketing the city as a major destination for business and leisure activities. Set up last April as a public/private partnership, with

Belfast City Council as its main funder, the bureau aims to promote a positive image of the city, says its director of communications, Mary Jo McCanny. It aims to show the "positive" and "vibrant side" of Belfast by rebranding it as a "must-see" destination and thereby increase the value and volume of tourism with all its attendant benefits.

Currently, the bureau is working on a cruise initiative. Last year, two cruise liners included Belfast on their itinerary. This year there will be seven, and 10 are booked in next year. It's enough to make anyone do a double take - Belfast, a destination for cruise liners and their "Gee, George, take a picture" paying passengers? Strange but true.

Even as McCanny is being interviewed, the Rotterdam - 850 passengers and 500 crew - is making its way to Belfast Lough after visiting Spain and Portugal. The owner of the ship, Holland America, is one of the biggest companies in the world. It is proof, says McCanny, that the positive message is cancelling out the negative one.

Even more startling is the fact that Belfast was voted one of the 10 top must-see destinations (along with Cuba and New Zealand) in the world by the Times of London. It's a new destination on the tourist map and as such is "intriguing" as one of the "undiscovered parts of Europe". Belfast is "trendy and hip", says McCanny, and visitors get a "very genuine" welcome.

The bureau's main plank in marketing Belfast is its citizens: "The strongest selling point Belfast has is its people . . . the warmth and the welcome of Belfast people." To that end, it has come up with the (very American) catch line of "Touch the spirit, feel the welcome" to mark the Belfast brand. Yet packaging contentious parades as a bit of local colour, for example, must be hard?

"They are difficult to manage, but at the end of the day that is Belfast, that is Northern Ireland. You've got two sides, and they both have their own celebrations." McCanny stresses that the bureau doesn't "represent any side; they are events that happen and we get inquiries. We need to let people know that those events are happening".

In recent years, Belfast has seen rising numbers of tourists from the Republic and Britain, which account for 70 per cent of its tourists, while continental Europeans and North Americans make up the rest. McCanny is confident that the trend will continue. "Political stability makes it a lot easier to market the city."

What does surprise many visitors, however, is that "it's not what a lot of them expect. Belfast is a very safe city. It constantly comes within the top safest cities on an annual survey carried out by the police, certainly in the UK and probably in Europe . . . and it's something that we are keen to promote." That said, three days after the Rotterdam docked, three mini buses and a car with Republic of Ireland registrations were burnt out in Belfast city centre. And as for the most difficult management problem of all (and an all-Ireland one) - the weather - McCanny simply says: "People have to understand that Ireland is green because it rains."

While the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau tries to rebuild Belfast's scorched reputation among tourists, another project, Belfast City Vision, works at rebuilding Belfast internally. Founded by the Belfast City Partnership Board, Belfast City Vision has set out to create a blueprint for the city in 25 years, an agreed structure which knits together Belfast's broken bones.

Paul Rooney, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers and a member of the board which draws support from public and private sectors and from across the political spectrum, sums the vision up as "an attempt to engage all the people of the city in highlighting what their dreams are for the city and what the vision of it would be in 25 years time and to provide people with an opportunity to enhance its richness".

The vision sets out six aims, to make Belfast:

a united city

a city of liveable communities

a city of culture and sport

a healthy city

a learning city

a prosperous city

It is an ambitious task given that many streets are truncated by walls of brick and corrugated iron. The street I grew up in was decapitated by one such wall. My youthful inquiry as to why it was there was met by a blunt: "To stop people shooting at each other." That is an experience that is mirrored in many places. The simple inability to cross from one area to another without hindrance or fear will remain a powerful deterrent to the city's reconstruction for the foreseeable future.

Rooney admits that there "will be a challenge; there is no question about that". The board has tried to be "realistic in its efforts". The aim is to "try and bring the concept of diversity to a level where we actually celebrate" it. He speaks of the positive nature of having a "matrix of urban villages in the city" - Shankill and Falls - and seeing "a varied city" as a strength. The plan is "organic but not descriptive", regenerating local communities and letting them grow out towards each other.

Yet this is tempered with a sense of recognising that the challenge is one that "we don't underestimate". "We have a dream," he says, "it's down to all of us to participate in that. It is about engaging in an inclusive process . . . without excluding anyone." The aim is to try to improve the position of the people of Belfast for the future, create an environment where people can feel included and walk the streets in peace.

The vision is both strategic and tactical. Within the six key areas, task forces have been set up to implement projects immediately. A wide-range of people and organisations are represented in the task forces, he says. A conference is planned for the end of this month to report back about what has been done; present an implementation plan and work towards autumn projects.

One such project which has already been given the go-ahead for November is the development of "green lungs" along Belfast's main commuter routes. Other plans mooted are: bringing local art to communities; easier access to health information; and encouraging teachers, for example, to spend time in business to get a new perspective on the city and how it works.

Rooney, originally from Castlewellan, Co Down, speaks with an honest passion for his adopted home. There are, he says, "some terrific ideas and a wealth of opportunity to deliver these". Yet he retains perspective: "It will be very difficult. But we have got to start; we have got to try. And the only result of how successful we have been will be hindsight . . . The vision doesn't mean that we're going to reach a Utopia . . . what it is going to do is challenge us across various areas."