[caption id="attachment_68471" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="The Giant's Causeway."]
Doubts have been raised over the viability of two high profile tourism projects for Northern Ireland.
Questions are being asked about the Titanic Signature Building in Belfast and the new Giant's Causeway visitors' center on the north Antrim coast.
The Northern Ireland Audit Office said it was doubtful whether the Titanic Signature Building, which is due to open next year on the hundredth anniversary of the liner's sinking on its maiden voyage, will break even. To achieve this the £77 million development at Belfast docks would have to attract 290,000 visitors a year.
The report accepts that the attraction will be popular initially but it doubts if it will consistently reach or exceed the numbers required for years to come.
However, University of Ulster economist Mike Smyth has said he thought it was "far too premature" to say the Titanic building project would not be value for money.
"We don't know what the likely tourism numbers will be from the Far East in the coming decades," he added. "We keep talking glibly about the changing geopolitical and economic power blocs eastwards and south. "These people, when they become very wealthy, will become the tourists of tomorrow.
"The key thing here is the brand - the Titanic brand is one of the most valuable in the world and the more fundamental question for me is, can we in Northern Ireland finally start to leverage it?"
The new visitors' center at the Giant's Causeway is due to open in June next year and the auditors said that to cover its costs it needs to bring in £1.6 million a year.
The Department of Enterprise and the Tourist Board said their financial predictions for the building are robust but, worryingly, the auditors believe there remains a risk that it will not achieve financial sustainability.
