Ireland's tourism industry has emerged from the difficulties of the foot-and-mouth crisis, the chief executive of Bord Failte, Mr John Dully, has said.
"I'm very optimistic about next year, and the year after, because we have an extraordinarily resilient product," he said at the opening of Ireland Travel Trade Workshop in the RDS, Dublin, yesterday.
However, the £200 million lost earlier this year could not be recouped as tourism was "a perishable product". More than 360 tour operators from 31 countries are meeting 700 Irish tourism representatives during the two-day event. Of these, 99 are attending for the first time, including representatives from Moldova and the United Arab Emirates.
It is expected that the number of visitors from the US and Canada will fall 5 to 10 per cent below last year, when visitors from this region exceeded a million for the first time.
Mr Jim McGuigan, executive vice-president with responsibility for the US and Canada, said they had "done a lot of reassurance aimed at both the consumer and the trade and this had been successful. In recent weeks, tour operators are reporting business is back to the same level as this time last year."
As part of the major reassurance campaign launched by Bord Failte in all of its markets, actor Martin Sheen appears in a 30-second advertisement now being screened on 13 US TV channels including CNN, Discovery, History and travel channels.
The overall publicity campaign will cost an additional £8 million, with £3 million from Bord Failte and £5 million from the Government. However, Sheen, who exhorts fellow Americans to "come with me to Ireland", played his part for "for the love of Ireland".
Last year, 3.6 million visitors came to Ireland from Britain. The priority for Ireland's biggest market now was to reassure tourists that the country was back to normal, said Mr John Greene, Bord Failte director in Britain. The sea carriers were the hardest hit and this business would be the most difficult to get back, he said.
Business from Britain is likely to be down 10 to 20 per cent this year. Measures to boost the market include the establishment of two funds of £100,000 and £150,000 to assist British tour operators and carriers respectively. In Europe, the markets most affected by the foot-and-mouth crisis are Germany and the Netherlands.