Selling Northern Ireland as a tourist destination has never been easy but according to Roy Bailie, OBE, who is chairman of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB), the North has never been in better shape and is poised to take full advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead.

It's certainly a bullish approach in what has been a particularly difficult year due to foot-and-mouth disease and the sterling differential.

At the start of the year there seemed to be every reason for optimism.

In February it looked as though the NITB through a clever marketing promotion had overcome its then biggest challenge - the strength of sterling.

Visitors from the Republic are the North's second largest target market.

However, the difference between sterling and the pound fluctuated to such a degree that there were times when visitors from the Republic were paying a premium of as much as 30 per cent to holiday in the North.

The NITB worked with hotels and other accommodation providers to offer deals in pounds so that by February visitor numbers were the best since 1995 and were up 90 per cent on the previous year.

These deals were extensively advertised in the Republic where the NITB spends approximately £800,000 annually on marketing. Then just when the NITB felt that they had their marketing mix on track, the foot-and-mouth crises struck and effectively closed the market for two months.

Mr Bailie's optimism is based largely on the ongoing development of the tourism infrastructure in the North and the advent of Tourism Ireland, the all-Ireland marketing body.

Northern Ireland has clearly been gearing itself up to cater for tourists - for example, hotel bed numbers in Belfast have doubled to 3,000 in the past six years.

However, speaking at a travel industry briefing in Dublin yesterday, Mr Bailie said that the biggest opportunity for the marketing of the North would come later this year when Tourism Ireland is launched.

This is a cross-Border initiative, which will market the island of Ireland as a single destination. Its first campaign will cover the 2002 season and it is expected to be unveiled in November.

The annual budget for the new marketing company for brand Ireland will be £21 million sterling, £7 million of which comes from Northern Ireland.

The promotional body will be charged with creating a new image for the island of Ireland and selling that image hard in foreign markets.

According to Mr Bailie, the North's tourism fortunes have long been linked to that of the Republic, with both parts of Ireland enjoying much the same visitor profile.

Dublin is, he said, a "gateway market" for the North and his tourist board is beefing up its resources to its Dublin office which includes an on-street presence in a shop-front location on Nassau Street in the centre of Dublin.

The euro's introduction at the end of this year will present challenges for the marketing of the North as a holiday destination for Southerners.

However, Ms Margaret O'Reilly, general manager of the NITB in the Republic, feels that their experience of persuading hoteliers to advertise in pounds has already prepared them for dealing with a different currency.

Mr Bailie says he believes that dual pricing in euros and sterling will have to become a common feature in the North to cater for visitors.

While the glamour of devising a big budget promotional campaign now belongs to Tourism Ireland, the NITB will be plugging away on organising its autumn campaign which will revolve around specific events in Northern Ireland such as the Belfast Festival and the Derry Halloween Carnival.

bharrison@irish-times.ie