A number of Bed and Breakfasts here are participating in a cross-border project aimed at boosting business in rural and regional areas.

Corrigan Shore Guest House, Willowbank House, Enniskillen and Arch House, Florencecourt along with over 35 B&Bs have taken part in a years training and support to help them develop, 'themed' breaks, such as angling, walking, golfing and gourmet food packages.

The project is part of a Specialist B&B programme which is part-financed by the European Union through the Interreg IIIA Programme and is managed for the Special EU Programmes Body by the ICBAN partnership. It is worth 80,137 euro.

A spokesperson for the Town and Country Homes Association, who are leading the pilot project, explained that the project enabled B&B owners to link across the counties, the border and across the regions and work together to offer packaged breaks for visitors.

Kate Burns, the Association chairperson, added that, for a long time in tourism, her organisation had wanted to develop better activity based holidays which would allow the foreign tourist to experience different parts of Ireland while on holiday here.

"This is particularly appealing to foreign visitors who statistically spend more money than domestic tourists in rural areas."

The project has attracted considerable attention and will feature on RTE 1's Nationwide programme tonight, Wednesday, 30th April.