ABOUT 6 per cent fewer visitors from the Republic went to Northern Ireland last year, the chairman of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB), Mr Roy Bailie, said yesterday.
He blamed the collapse of the IRA ceasefire, the "morally wrong" events surrounding the summer stand off at Drumcree and the lack of political progress.
Mr Bailie was speaking before today's opening of the Holiday World exhibition in the RDS in Dublin, where there are over 70 Northern participants.
He said many people in the North were working hard to ensure there is no repetition of last year's Orange marching season. No civilised individual wanted to see another Drumcree, Mr Bailie said, and he described the attacks on Catholics going to Mass in Harryville as the work of "hooligans". It was encouraging, he added, that the Americans were pressing for a restoration of the IRA ceasefire.
Even though fewer southerners travelled North last year, there were still 13 per cent more of them than in 1994, Mr Bailie said, and no tour operator had cancelled its Northern programme since the Troubles resumed.
Mr Bailie welcomed the joint international marketing between Bord Failte and the NITB. "We can co operate in bringing tourists to the island and then compete for which part they stay in. It's a classic case of two and two making five", he said.
The High Sheriff of Belfast and Alliance Party councillor, Mr Steve McBride, said of the NorthSouth co operation: "Some of my unionist colleagues see the marketing logic, but they also see a political dimension they don't like. Personally, I don't believe there has to be a political agenda."
He said Drumcree made it difficult to sell Northern Ireland in the Republic "but we can't just sit back and do nothing".
Mr Bailie said tourism and trade between the two parts of the island will be greatly enhanced by the opening of the high speed rail link between Belfast and Dublin probably in late spring. There will be nine trips a day and the journey time will be 90 minutes.
The exhibition opens to the public at 2 p.m. today and runs until 6.30 p.m. on Sunday.