Tourists are a fickle bunch, driven by merciless one-upmanship to ever more distant destinations. Yet right here in Europe is the sleeping beauty of tourist destinations: Germany.

For most Irish travellers, Germany is a black hole, an imagined place of sterile cities and endless motorways that always elicits the same response when suggested as a holiday destination: "Germany? I'd never have thought of going there . . ."

Yet for eight golden weeks last summer, things were different. Germany became the promised land for millions of visiting World Cup fans, dazzled by how much fun they had in a country they would never otherwise have visited.

The first tourism figures for 2007 suggest that many of these World Cup visitors are returning to Germany with friends and family. So has the German tourism curse finally been broken? The omens are good, but there is a lot of work ahead, particularly in Ireland.

In theory, Germany is the perfect destination for almost every kind of holiday: it has the endless white Baltic Sea beaches, the tranquillity of the Black Forest and the German Alps, a wine-lovers' paradise in the Rhine and Mosel valleys, and the city buzz of Berlin and Hamburg.

Despite having so much to offer, though, Germany has been trapped for decades in a vicious circle of prejudice and ignorance. Many tourists feel they know more than enough about Germany, almost all bad. Even six decades on, the Nazi past still makes Germany a difficult sell.

"The prejudice is really hard," admits Jeanette Schuchmann, marketing manager of the German National Tourist Board's (DZT) London office. "Do you mention prejudices in marketing to help people get over them, even if some other people may be offended if you do?"

The DZT London office is responsible for promoting Germany in Ireland but does little to improve Germany's less than stellar reputation as a travel destination. If you're wondering why you've never seen "come to Germany" advertisements here, it's because there aren't any.

The agency's annual poster campaign is limited to the London underground; its marketing efforts in Ireland amount to an annual promotional tour, a press dinner and a visit to Holiday World in Dublin.

Wounded DZT marketing officials say they don't push Germany more intensively in Ireland because they sense no interest here.

"We're facing a chicken-and-egg situation: the number of operators offering Germany I can count on the fingers of one hand," said Schuchmann.

And would a larger marketing push raise awareness and break the vicious circle? "If we had lots of money, we could do lots of advertising in Ireland, but we haven't got that budget."

Why not? The economics ministry in Berlin - which holds the tourism purse strings - isn't saying. And yet because of, or even in spite of, the DTZ's efforts, Germany is growing in popularity as a tourist destination. In 2006, helped by the World Cup, the number of overnight stays topped 52 million for the first time. However figures from the Central Statistics Office and World Travel Monitor show that Irish tourists have yet to be won over: of the 3.4 million trips Irish travellers made to continental Europe in 2006, only 154,000 were to Germany.

Still, the DZT says the number of Irish visitors rose by one-third last year, thanks to Ryanair and Aer Lingus bringing families to the Christmas market of Bernkastel-Kues in the Mosel valley and stag parties to the notorious Reeperbahn in Hamburg. The real challenge now is to get Irish visitors to stay for longer than a weekend.

Besides the extraordinary landscapes and relatively predictable weather, Germany is easy to get around, thanks to the amazing autobahn network and immaculate train service. And, despite what you may have heard, Germany is probably western Europe's last low-cost destination, particularly for families. Hotel rooms in Berlin can be had for as little as €49 a night, with guest house accommodation outside main cities available for even less.