The Bath Chronicle has been involved in a massive task to find out how badly the area’s tourism industry has been hit by the foot and mouth crisis.

And the newspaper has sent out an emotive letter to tourist chiefs – including those in Holland, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden and the USA – to explain the situation.

The newspaper polled 50 businesses in the city and almost half said that the disease had had an impact on business.

Out of those asked, 23 companies confirmed they had been hit with cancelled bookings or low visitor numbers.

Holiday trips to the city have been cancelled and experts estimate it could take up to a year for Bath to recover financially from the lost business if many more tourists decide to stay away.

The letters sent abroad urged the tourist chiefs to do whatever they could to spread the word that the vast majority of Bath’s tourist attractions were still open – and the area’s unique charm had not been affected by the crisis.

The newspaper also dedicated a front page to the article and sent a copy of the layout to the foreign tourist authorities as well as to foreign newspapers.

Previous research has shown that Bath is most popular with visitors from North America, Australia, northern Europe, Japan and Ireland.

The city is visited by around 350,000 tourists from abroad every year and has an annual revenue of £195m from tourism.

The actions of the newspaper will assist the city and its tourist officials in trying to minimise the effects of the foot and mouth crisis on the tourism sector in Bath.

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