Tourism Ireland is marketing the island as a whole to the rest of the world,as the industry recovers after a dramatic fall-off in 2001. Barry O'Halloran reports

Tourism Ireland chief executive Paul O'Toole can claim to have a strong connection with one of the more tourist- dependent (and tourist-friendly) parts of this island.

His mother's family hails from Allihies, which is so far west in west Cork that America really is the next parish. Despite changes in the market indicating that the visitors who spend up to €5 billion a year in this economy are frequently heading for the urbanised east, the rugged and beautiful western seaboard image typified by places like Allihies is still one of the things used to sell Ireland as a holiday destination.

A glance at some of the promotional magazines in the foyer of his modern Dublin office reveals that their covers carry pictures of this kind of landscape - one features a Connemara mountain stream, another a currach occupied by a lone fisherman silhouetted against a sunset. But wherever the tourists actually end up, these images are working because the visitors are returning.

Figures released this week show that the industry is recovering after a dramatic fall-off in visitor numbers in 2001. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), 6.3 million visited the Republic last year. Mr O'Toole says 7.3 million visited the island as a whole. In 2001, just 5.9 million people visited the Republic, down from a high of over 6.3 million the previous year. The decline in the North was broadly similar. The fall-off was a direct consequence of the foot and mouth epidemic, which limited movement between the Republic and its biggest market, Britain.

This was followed by the World Trade Centre attacks in September 2001, which killed off any hope of a late-season recovery, particularly from the Americas. This week, CSO figures show that 2003 had narrowly edged ahead of 2000.

Another development coincided with the industry's first decline in business in a decade. At the beginning of 2002, Tourism Ireland, with Mr O'Toole at its head, took over the job of marketing the island as a whole to the rest of the world. It is an all-island agency with overarching responsibility in this area, while Fáilte Ireland and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, respectively, act as guardians of quality, enterprise development, human resource development and the home market.

"We came from a very difficult place in terms of where the industry was going, but that's the way it was," he says. "The challenge for us was, as a new organisation, we had to not just grapple with integrating the overseas marketing operations of Bord Fáilte and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. We had to get up-and-running straight away, because the industry was in a difficult situation and they needed the assurance that their overseas marketing body was up to scratch."

It also had to deal with a difficult year in 2002, punctuated by the war in Afghanistan. The numbers grew slightly despite this and the generally unstable international situation. Last year was a "year of recovery".

Mr O'Toole says that the island as a whole again attracted 7.3 million visitors last year, who spent in the region of €5 billion in the 32-county economy. The core industry, including the island's hotels, guest houses and other services, now employs over 160,000 people.

"It's our most important domestic industry," Mr O'Toole argues, pointing out that it has been overshadowed by the multinational sectors such as technology and pharmaceuticals. In fact, he says, it's an ideal industry for this country, because it does not depend on imports and generates jobs and foreign earnings.

This year, the island's most important domestic industry is targeting growth of 4.5 per cent. And Tourism Ireland will ratchet up its marketing efforts next week to coincide with St Patrick's Day (which is now starting to look like it lasts a week). It is the traditional starting point for the season and is, of course, an attraction in itself.

"It gives us a focal point in the year with the general public in our key markets (Britain, Europe, the US and Canada) when their minds are more receptive to matters Irish," Mr O'Toole says. "In all of our key markets, we will be running programmes. We will be running our advertising campaigns and our consumer promotions. We will be doing a lot of work on publicity and with the media. We will be running events with overseas carriers, and we will be using visits by cabinet members to those markets to reinforce our message.

"Along with that, we will be working with people who organise the St Patrick's Festival here in Dublin. We will be producing a video and news release that will be sent out to all the key broadcast media right around the world.

"So we will be doing a big, big publicity push using St Patrick's Festival as an anchor. We will bring in 30 to 40 overseas journalists and film crews for the week," he says.

Mr O'Toole points out that the week is appropriate for promoting the island as a whole because St Patrick appeals to both the Catholic and Protestant traditions. In all, Tourism Ireland plans to spend €40 million on marketing throughout this year. Of this, €34 million represents its core spend - the Republic's taxpayers contribute two thirds of this, with Northern Ireland contributing the balance.

The remaining €6 million is funded by Fáilte Ireland, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and the industry itself. That €40 million funds two specific tasks, he explains: "The first one is to grow tourism to the island of Ireland, and the second one then is to support Northern Ireland to realise its full potential. We don't skew the investment in financial terms, but we do work closely with the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and with the Northern Ireland industry, because that industry is not as developed as it is in the South," he says. However, he adds that it is coming on in leaps and bounds.

"But our key task is to get people in our markets thinking about the island of Ireland instead of the 179 destinations that are going after the same business as us," he says.

The test will be whether the industry stays on the recovery track, from the Giant's Causeway all the way down to Allihies.