Chairman of Tourist Board appeals for peace

The Northern Ireland Tourist Board boss has issued a plea to the community at large to help and stop the damaging effects of violence on the streets of Northern Ireland.

The Chairman of the Tourist Board Roy Bailie (OBE) made the call for peace at the company’s launch of their three year Draft Corporate Plan on Wednesday March 6.

He said factors such as rioting and sectarianism on the streets of Belfast particularly did much to damage Northern Ireland’s chance to regenerate and attract visitors.

“Images beamed across CNN to North America and Europe shown of the violence on our streets is not conducive to tourism, he said. “It makes it very difficult to sell tourism against that.

“NI is operating at a third of its capacity around £250 million. If we filled up those two thirds we would generate an extra £500 million per annum.

“We now believe that with Tourism Ireland and the restructured Tourist Board we can grow tourism by 7 per cent per annum. That’s against the current 2 per cent levels. Which is significant. We reckon that by the end of the corporate plan in 2005 we will have 2.2 million tourists against 1.6 million now.”

Introducing the Draft Plan, Mr Bailie said: “The Corporate Plan has been produced against a background of evolving circumstances. Although there are many factors outside the influence of NITB and the tourism industry, the outlook is optimistic with tourism having the potential to be the fastest growing industry in Northern Ireland.”

Alan Clarke, Chief Executive, NITB outlined a range of initiatives which are planned for the next three years and which, he believes, will result in a significant increase in the number of visitors over the period of the Plan.

Mr Clarke said: “The approach outlined in our Corporate Plan has the capacity to ensure that tourism contributes to the creation of a competitive dynamic economy. We look forward to working with our partners in the industry to achieve this aim. During the period of consultation now available we intend to develop some of the ideas which we have outlined in this draft plan”.

(AMcE)