THE Westcountry tourism industry has unleashed an aggressive marketing campaign on Continental Europe as it looks to exploit the weakness of the pound.

Airlines and ferry companies with direct links into the South West say holidaymakers from France, Germany and Spain are already being seduced by the region's natural beauty married to the promise of a bargain.

Eurozone residents and high-spending North Americans are set to save hundreds of euros and dollars on the same holiday in Devon and Cornwall they would have bought even last year.

In common with many hoteliers and restaurant owners, Will Ashworth, director of the upmarket Watergate Bay Hotel near Newquay, Cornwall, is eyeing the Continental visitor more eagerly in the hope of enjoying the spoils of the multi-million-pound windfall.

He said: "It has never been an important market for us, but we are focusing more than we ever have on attracting the Dutch, Swiss and German tourists. They are very pro-Cornish because they don't have what we have. They don't have the Cornish village romance. The French do."

After the boom in budget travel, tourists from Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin can be close to Dartmoor, popular surfing beaches and chic Westcountry restaurants in mere hours.

Visit Britain, the British-wide tourism body, is to launch a £6.5 million TV and Press campaign in Europe and the US marketing the UK as a value-for-money holiday destination.

"It will be British-wide, not just promoting London," said Elliot Frisby, public relations manager at Visit Britain. "Because of the low-cost airline boom, more and more people are flying into regional airports such as Exeter."

Bristol Airport said the favourable euro and dollar exchange rate had already sparked a noticeable increase in foreign tourists on its direct flights from Continental Europe and New York.

Airport head of communications James Gore said: "We will be developing the content on our website's new multi-lingual pages to highlight the South West's attractions. For example, the German pages could focus on the Devon and Cornwall locations used in Rosamunde Pilcher's novels, which are extremely popular on German TV."

At the tail end of last year, sterling hit an all-time low against the euro and is expected to bump along at a lowly level into the vital summer season.

At the pound's high point against the euro in May 2000, a pound was worth g1.746. Yesterday, a pound could be bought for just g1.363. To put that in perspective, a £500 holiday in the Westcountry would cost the eurozone traveller just g682 – saving nearly g200 compared to nine years ago.

Brittany Ferries runs regular services from Plymouth to Roscoff in France and Santander in Spain, and has developed a suite of promotions to whet the appetite of Continental travellers.

In two weeks, the firm says it is "very pleased" to have secured 500 passenger bookings for shopping trips in Plymouth on the back of highlighting the Drake Circus shopping centre and promoting the fact that British high street names are open on a Sunday.

Other offers include "Escapade de 3 jours en Cournouailles" – or a three-day tour of Cornwall.

Bookings have also been boosted by the Breton carrier's new £100 million luxury ferry, the Armorique, between Plymouth and Roscoff which set sail for the first time earlier this month.

Brittany Ferries spokesman Chris Jones said: "We have experienced a noticeable increase in bookings by tourists coming from France to visit Plymouth and the South West."

Holidaymakers from Ireland, also in the eurozone, are being targeted by tourism leaders as well.

Westcountry-based low-cost airline Air Southwest has stepped up its marketing in Cork and Dublin, where passengers can hop on direct flights to Plymouth and Newquay airports.

Bristol Airport, which flies passengers in from 120 destinations in 31 countries, is working with Italian and French counterparts to help promote their new routes to the South West.

Malcolm Bell, chief executive of South West Tourism, said while only 8 per cent of visitors to Devon and Cornwall emanated from overseas, the plummeting pound was a "genuine opportunity" for the industry.

But he warned hotels and restaurants that they had to tailor their marketing to the countries where foreign visitors were likely to begin their journey, ostensibly the destinations of the region's ferry and airline operators.

"It will be a slow burn. We have to remember there are financial problems across the water as well. But there are a lot of deals to be made, particularly with Brittany Ferries into Plymouth and Flybe's European destinations into Exeter."

South West Tourism said much of the promotion on the Continent was being led by Visit Britain and its 35 outposts across the world.

Tom Roach, who specialises in hotels and tourism at Winter Rule, Cornwall's largest firm of chartered accountants, said: "We've been tracking hotel occupancy rates and tariffs in Cornwall for 20 years and this season is looking better than a lot of people expect.

"Many of our hotel and guesthouse clients are expecting to be slightly up on last year, not necessarily because of any boom in visitors from the eurozone but because the high euro is making 'staycations' much more attractive."