THEY have both been billed as landmark tourist attractions to mark the 100th anniversary of Titanic’s tragic maiden voyage.

But council heritage bosses behind a £15m Titanic museum in Southampton have shrugged off comparisons with Belfast as its own £97m Titanic visitor attraction takes shape.

They have insisted Southampton has a different story to tell to mark the tragedy in which 1,520 people – a third of them from the city – perished. And Southampton civic chiefs suggest the heritage attraction will, pound-for-pound, be more than a match to pull in visitors.

Rising up from the head of the slipways where the Titanic was built, Northern Ireland’s largest tourism attraction looms impressively against the Belfast skyline.

A mix of private and public cash has been pumped into the Government-backed project to create “Titanic Belfast”.

Opening next March, the attraction will explore every aspect of the liner, from its construction at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard to the discovery of its wreck on the North Atlantic seabed. The attraction also includes banqueting and conference facilities.

The details of the exhibitions have yet to be announced but the attraction will feature nine “interpretive and interactive galleries” over four floors, exploring the sights, sounds, smells and stories of Titanic, as well as Belfast and the people who made her.

They will cover the shipyard, Titanic’s fit-out and launch, her maiden voyage and sinking, and an “immersive theatre” ride will explore Titanic’s final resting place.

Cliodhna Craig, chief officer of Titanic Foundation Ltd, the independent charitable trust which will own Titanic Belfast, said Titanic offered a “tremendous opportunity for Belfast” to celebrate the city’s industrial and maritime heritage and capture the pride in the city around the “Titanic brand”.

Mrs Craig said the attraction was rated as one of five key significant projects in Northern Ireland and would become a “stand-out on the international stage”.

The attraction has been backed by Northern Ireland Executive with up to £37m of funding from the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

The remaining cash with come from Titanic Quarter Limited, Belfast Harbour Commissioners and Belfast City Council.

“There is confidence in the project from the highest level and expectation at the highest level,” Mrs Craig said. “The whole idea is to create a new generation of Titanic thinkers.”

Mrs Craig said Titanic Belfast was expected to attracted 400,000 visitors a year, 150,000 of them from abroad.

She said inquires have already being coming in from the United States with tour operators preparing packages. Ninety-nine years ago this week RMS Titanic left Southampton on its final journey.

In Southampton the blocks of the distinctive pavilion for Southampton’s new Sea City Museum are being slotted into place alongside the Civic Centre in the biggest redevelopment in the 78-year history of the building.

Two permanent exhibitions in the former magistrates’ courts and central police station will tell Southampton’s Titanic story and explain the city’s role as “gateway to the world”. The extension to the grade II listed former magistrates’ courts will host a special year-long exhibition called Legend of the Titanic.

The Sea City Museum is being funded by a £4.9m heritage lottery grant, with the city council borrowing the balance, while a further £5m is found through fundraising and just under £4m from selling unspecified leisure and heritage “assets”.

The council’s leisure and heritage boss Councillor John Hannides said: “Southampton is developing something different and on a different scale. There is a big difference in terms of this being Northern Ireland’s national attraction, which is able to benefit from grants that Southampton is not.

“We are looking at it from a different perspective – much more at the people involved as crew members and the massive social impact the tragedy had on Southampton.”

Cllr Hannides said he still expected up to 180,000 people a year to visit the attraction.

Putting part of the museum in the west wing of the Civic Centre has saved millions of pounds, he added.