DON WILMONT,
Madam, - It was with considerable disappointment that I read Kevin Myers's Irishman's Diary of October 22nd, virtually writing off our beautiful Causeway Coast as a tourist attraction.
Mr Myers revisited the well- worn warning of Dr Samuel Johnson that the Giant's Causeway is "worth seeing, but not worth going to see" and seemed to apply it to almost all of Northern Ireland - an approach guaranteed to inflame any Northerner, particularly if, as in my case, his business is promoting Northern Ireland tourism!
Without wishing to seem overly defensive, I feel that Mr Myers allowed his wish to draft a provocative piece to over-ride not only his sense of fairness but also of realism. Northern Ireland evidently has many natural beauties to attract the visitor, not least the Giant's Causeway which is of such global significance that UNESCO has designated it a World Heritage Site.
What Mr Myers describes as "a rather modest display of cold lava formed into polygonal columns" could equally be described as "uniquely beautiful with majestic impact". . .or are we both being subjective? Fortunately, a great many tourists share my view and research indicates extremely high levels of visitor satisfaction. This is particularly relevant to our visitors from the Republic.
Our market intelligence indicates that last year over 50 per cent of visitors from the Republic were on a repeat visit to our area. Indeed, 14 per cent of ROI visitors had visited Northern Ireland more than 20 times in the past 10 years. Hardly an indication of dissatisfied cutomers!
Here in the Causeway Coast and Glens of Antrim, we admit that perhaps we do not yet have the infrastructure to provide the visitor with the wealth of choices when it comes to bars, bistros, coffee shops and crafts emporiums that he or she might find in top tourist destinations across the world, but then we don't yet have the visitor numbers to sustain such businesses.
The tourist facilities that are in the area are of good quality and are, in the main, extremely well run by people who have the courage (and I use that world advisedly in these tough times) to commit to the future of tourism in Northern Ireland. They are to be commended, rather than criticised.
As Mr Myers points out in his criticism of political murals, evidence of our long standing problems abounds. I would go a step further than he does and would focus my criticism on the violence which is at the heart of our problems. If we had peace, those political murals could be viewed as little more than an interesting relic of troubled times and, perhaps, a reminder that diversity is to be respected and celebrated rather than obliterated.
Visitors to Northern Ireland - and there are many - will not find a highly polished tourist industry ready to offer them an insipid, processed holiday experience. Rather, they will find a beautiful and often surprisingly tranquil corner of Ireland whose inhabitants offer a genuinely warm welcome. - Yours, etc.,
DON WILMONT, Manager, Causeway Coast and Glens, Coleraine, Co Derry.