Foot and mouth puts Northern tourism to test

By Jack Holland

After 30 years struggling against a plague of Troubles, the Northern Ireland hospitality industry was just rebounding when it was struck this spring by the plague of foot-and-mouth disease. Though the disease, which only affects hoofed animals, has so far been limited to a mere three cases in the North, it has led to a drastic drop in the number of tourists, with 70 percent of the leading hotels and guest houses reporting cancellations of tours, conferences and events, according to a survey published last week.

Northern Ireland’s most renowned tourist site, the Giant’s Causeway, was sealed off, though now access to its beaches and shoreline has been reopened. Favorite attractions for U.S. visitors such as the American Folk Park in County Tyrone were also shut, along with many National Trust properties.

"Misunderstanding has been the main problem," according to John Toner, general manager of the 246-bedroom Belfast Europa, which through the darkest years of violence shone like a lonely beacon as the downtown area’s only functioning hotel. He said that especially in the United States, people wrongly believe that "humans can get the disease." As a result, his hotel has suffered about a 15 percent reduction in trade so far this spring, Toner reported. But he said that the real problem will come in the summer, with tour cancellations running at up to 80 percent.

"It’s not looking good," he said.

As an example of the kind of misunderstanding encountered by hotel and guest house owners, Nora Brown, who with her husband, Ralph, runs Grange Lodge, near Moy, Co. Tyrone, related how some U.S. visitors cancelled their trip because "they thought if they came their feet would fall off" in they contracted the disease.

The Grange, a 17th century property, which she and her husband have been operating for 14 years, is styled a "country house," with only five bedrooms. Half their bookings come from the United States, said the Browns.

"Bookings are down 70-80 percent compared to last year," Brown said. The Grange is only eight miles from Ardboe, where one of the three Northern Ireland cases of foot-and-mouth was diagnosed.

The Browns, like all people who work in Northern Ireland’s hospitality industry, are well accustomed to adversity.

"It’s like the Troubles," Brown said. "Just when Northern Ireland was looking forward to a fresh start, we get foot and mouth. But it’s amazing how quickly people recover. Life goes on — that’s one of the things you learned, no matter what the catastrophe."

The good news is that some Americans who cancelled for spring and summer, have been rebooking for September.

Maureen McCarry, who along with her daughter Anna runs Colliers’ Hall, near Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, just a few miles from where another of the three foot-and-mouth cases was reported at Ballintoy, reports a 30 percent decline in business so far this year. Colliers’ Hall is an 18th century property that has been converted to provide farm-house-style accommodation. It has nine rooms, which are now one-third less full than usual, according to McCarry.

"After the peace process business went up 30 percent," she said, regretting that this gain has been more or less wiped out by the foot-and-mouth problem.

In what could be seen as a display of defiance, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board is going ahead with its annual World Travel Fair this Friday (May 11th), which will be attended by 140 tour operators from around the world.

"It was very bad," admitted Alastair Good, a spokesman for the Northern Ireland Hotel Federation, "but the worse of it is now over. Foot and mouth is now under control and visitor numbers are increasing. The tide has turned."

He is confident that the industry can recapture the momentum it had built since 1994 and the beginning of the peace process. According to Good, in 1998 Northern Ireland had 1.47 million visitors. In 1999, it was up to 1.65 million, with 55,000 of them coming from the United States. To accommodate this increase, Northern Ireland has witnessed a hotel building boom. This month alone two new hotels are opening, a Ramada Inn with 150 rooms near Shaw’s Bridge, along the Lagan River just south of Belfast, and the other in Armagh, owned by the Mooney Group. Where for many years there was only one Belfast downtown hotel — the Europa — there are now nine, including the Belfast Hilton, opened in 1998.

Having managed the Europa through some of the worst years of the Troubles, Toner is resilient.

"It’s not as bad as it was then," he said. "We always kept our doors open through the conflict." That attitude, he was quick to assert, has not changed.