It is believed that hundreds of thousands of euro in cancelled bookings for accommodation and other services may have been lost since the terrorism alert was raised to 'critical' in the UK a fortnight ago.

The Sunday Tribune has learned that, in one instance, a group of 40 US businessmen last week withdrew from a 180,000 trip to the K Club event which they had booked via Dublin-based agents Adams and Butler. The businessmen will now end up out of pocket to the tune of 150,000 after having already paid upfront for tickets and luxury accommodation in Kildare.

The group explained that they were afraid to come to Ireland following the recent terror scare in UK airports.

John Colclough, director of Adams and Butler agents, last week travelled to the US to meet with clients and offset their fears over airline security. "We're spending our time telling people it will all be fine and that there is no problem travelling. Some Americans consider that Europe is everywhere between Berlin and Beirut and that's obviously a problem, " he said.

While UK travellers are expected to come in large numbers, Colclough said that a large proportion of the luxury accommodation market are Americans. However, Colclough said that the professionalism of Irish companies involved in letting property and liaising with US travellers had "stemmed any potential tide" in widespread cancellations.

Colclough added that muchinflated rents sought by homeowners in proximity to the K Club had not materialised.

"Very, very few homes placed for rent got 20,000 for the week, unless they had exceptional appeal, " he said. "In my experience most of the properties went for in the region of under 7,000 and many of these would be very good houses that would sell for 1m-plus, the sort that ordinarily would have beamers and mercs parked outside." While some large properties received 100,000 for the week, these are "large landed estates rented by large corporate clients", he said.