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Tourists flood into Belfast

For decades, most foreigners visiting this strife-torn province were either journalists covering the Catholic-Protestant conflict or diplomats trying to end it. So when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) captured world headlines recently by promising to disarm, the news was welcomed by Ulster`s nascent tourism industry. The tourists visiting Belfast in rapidly growing numbers find a transformed downtown, filled with free-spending shoppers and revelers instead of gun-toting police and soldiers.

"Our image has steadily been improving, though we lag behind the Republic of Ireland," says Alan Clarke, head of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. "We`ve got some catching up to do, even though we`ve made dramatic progress over the last few years. The peace is incredibly important and we`ve seen tangible increases."

One peacetime dividend is an explosion of direct international flights, hastened by the advent of Europe`s low-cost airlines. Just 18 months ago, only Amsterdam was directly connected to Belfast - now, 15 foreign cities are. The first direct flights between Northern Ireland and North America began in June with daily flights on Continental Airlines from Belfast to Newark, N.J. Northern Ireland plans to target its American diaspora, including some 20 million descendants of the Scots-Irish, known here as Ulster Scots. Scottish settlers were lured to Ulster by the promise of free land, but many later grew tired of battling the Irish natives and left by the millions in the 1700s to settle the American frontier.