With more than 14 months to go before the whistle blows for the opening match of the 2006 football World Cup, the German tourism industry is licking its lips in anticipation of a bumper crop of visitors.

The message that the World Cup is coming to Germany soon is everywhere at an international tourism fair which closes in Berlin on Tuesday.

Visitors are invited to shoot at a goal standing on a vibrant green piece of astroturf while people flock around the bus used to transport the German national team.

Germany is expecting an influx of three million visitors to watch the tournament which takes place from June 9 to July 9 -- and it hopes those fans will shop, drink and eat to their heart's content and enjoy the country's cultural attractions while they are here.

Franz Beckenbauer, one of Germany's sporting heroes as a player and manager and now the head of the 2006 World Cup organising committee, said hotels must be ready for business if they are to get their share of the bonanza.

"We are counting on at least five million extra overnight stays in Germany. We have to make the most of this. We won't get another chance like it," he said in an interview this week in Wirtschaftswoche magazine.

Germany, however, should be wary of the experience of Athens, which was expecting a tourism boom from last year's Summer Olympic Games but instead found many potential visitors scared off by security fears, or concerns that hotels were inflating their prices.

However, the Olympics are more or less a one-city event, whereas the World Cup in Germany will be spread around 12 host cities, stretching from Cologne in the west to Leipzig in the former East Germany. The final game is in Berlin.

The tourist industry wants the German government to introduce exceptional measures for an exceptional event.

The German hoteliers' federation used the tourism fair in Berlin to call for shops to be allowed to open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, during the World Cup.

And it called for a ban on night flights to be lifted during the competition, allowing fans to travel around the country more easily.

But the World Cup is also being seen in Germany as a golden opportunity to improve its image abroad by shaking off its grey and industrial reputation, not just by building stadiums which are architecturally stunning, but by a true public relations effort: The tournament's official slogan is "A time to make friends".

"This is the world's number one sports event and we want to present ourselves as a welcoming country, one which is friendly and open to the world. We would also like to spread the knowledge of the German language and reinforce our image," said Petra Hedorfer, the president of the German Central Tourist Authority (DZT).

Beckenbauer agrees. "For five or six weeks, Germany is going to be the centre of the world and we are expecting 15,000 journalists.

"What this is going to do for the image of the country cannot be put into mere figures."