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Down Under
U.S tourists encouraged to visit Down Under
2005-08-23
AUSTRALIA'S tourism pitch into North America will soon hit the road, with a bus touring dozens of cities to publicise the virtues of the land Down Under as a holiday destination. Tourism Australia said today it had also joined forces with influential publisher National Geographic in a multimillion-dollar campaign to target North America. Tourism Minister Fran Bailey said the marketing and public relations partnership would extend Tourism Australia's reach and penetration through one of the world's most powerful brands.

As part of the year-long campaign, a bus will travel around north-eastern USA and eastern Canada visiting and educating travel agents and media on quality Australian product and experiences. Ms Bailey said the six-week, 36-city, Australian Rolling Roadshow tour was a creative and exciting way to raise awareness and knowledge of some of the many fantastic experiences a vacation in Australia has to offer. The campaign will focus on indigenous and ecotourism, identified by the Australian government as key niche tourism experiences.
If I go to Australia, I don't want "indigenous and ecotourism." I want to see kangaroos and koala bears, drink beer, and go to the beach to look at babes. I can stay home for most other things.
The $US1 million ($A1.33 million) campaign will include advertising in key National Geographic magazines and on National Geographic's website. The website will include a dedicated Australian site that will feature content on Australian tourism. Ms Bailey said National Geographic's two key travel magazines, Traveller and Adventure, reached nearly eight million readers each issue in the US alone, while the website boasted 6.3 million unique visitors each month. The ongoing partnership with National Geographic had been expanded this year to include a rolling roadshow with US-based wholesaler Qantas Vacations, she said. "Over recent years, Tourism Australia has worked closely with partners such as National Geographic and Qantas to target high-yield, fully independent travellers who tend to travel widely throughout rural and regional Australia," Ms Bailey said. "Partnerships such as these will increase awareness of Australia's unique and cultural tourism experiences and encourage more international tourists to view Australia as the number one must-see holiday destination." The campaign will begin in mid-September.
Posted by:Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World

#17  Here ya go, Judge.
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2005-08-23 19:09  

#16  Still pissed off our 5-port tour of Australia got cancelled due to the first Gulf War. Saddam should hang for that alone.
Posted by: Pappy   2005-08-23 18:51  

#15  Ima love the call of the Kookabarra

Laugh kookabarra
laugh kookabarra
mighty King of the forest(?) he.

Posted by: Judge Crater   2005-08-23 18:21  

#14  LOL - thx Alan - words to remember
Posted by: Frank G   2005-08-23 17:58  

#13  Use the first part of the cruise to get over the jet-lag.

It was 14 hours Sydney to LA non-stop (thank goodness cause there weren't nothing to stop on)

Oh, and when you're jet lagged in Port Douglas, don't go sit under a Palm Tree to watch the sun rise. There may be a Kookaburra in said Palm tree and their call (famous from every jungle movie ever written) 5 feet over your head will cost you at least 10 years off your life.
Posted by: AlanC   2005-08-23 17:55  

#12  I ummmm
Posted by: Thraing Hupoluper1864   2005-08-23 17:00  

#11  I sneer.
Posted by: J. Chiraq   2005-08-23 16:48  

#10  I sneer at motion
Posted by: P Dirac   2005-08-23 16:18  

#9  I sneer at motion sickness.
Posted by: mojo   2005-08-23 15:07  

#8  mojo: Fly to Sydney, pick up the ship. Two weeks cruising, and possibly diving on, the Great Barrier Reef...

The combination of a jet lag (inversion of night and day) and sea-sickness could be a real show-stopper.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-08-23 14:12  

#7  It takes 20 hours to fly from LA to Sydney.

Actually, it's a tad under 15 hours.

Having been there a number of times recently, I heartily recommend going down there for anyone contemplating the trip. I especially loved the various little towns on the NSW mid-north coast.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2005-08-23 13:10  

#6  Haven't been there in 20 years, but down under is great.

First trip was about 3 months after the Aussie's won the America's Cup race and they were still partying!! Saw Kangaroos and Koalas and honkin' big crocs, drank beer and watched babes on the beach (Bondi, Botany Bay and several others) oh and went to Cairns and Port Douglas to see the reef. Want to go back and do everything west of the "mountains" (Blue Ridge?) that're just west of Sydney.


Tip a Toohey's or two, mate!
Posted by: AlanC   2005-08-23 12:46  

#5  I lived in Sydney for three years. Many fatheaded Aussies cringed because Paul Hogan made some tourism ads. "Why don't they show Australia's sophisticated nightlife, culture, museums?" they whined.

Because, you morons, we don't need to leave the US for that stuff. We want to see the whole Paul Hogan -- Steve Irwin schtick, we want to see wild kangaroos hopping through the forest. We don't want to go to the freakin' NSW museum of modern crap art, or whatever it's called (seriously, I think St. Louis has as many cultural attractions as Sydney).

Of course, after we get through staring at the kangaroos and the koalas and the Barrier Reef and Uluru (the PC name for Ayers Rock), then it is nice to be able to go to Sydney and find a good cup of coffee and maybe a nightclub, if you're into that sort of thing. That's how they should have advertised it.
Posted by: Angie Schultz   2005-08-23 11:23  

#4  Fly to Sydney, pick up the ship. Two weeks cruising, and possibly diving on, the Great Barrier Reef...
Posted by: mojo   2005-08-23 10:41  

#3  WC: Wonder if they've thought of cruise ships? With all the retirees having done the Med, the Crib, Mexico, and Alaska, I wonder how many would opt for a long cruise?

That would be a really long cruise. It takes 20 hours to fly from LA to Sydney. Average speed for a 747 tends to be about 500 knots. Cruising speed for a typical cruise ship is 20 knots. That's 25*20 = 500 hours = 20+ days at sea. For people who get sea-sick and decide cruises are not for them, there's nowhere to get off - the Pacific Ocean is mainly empty expanse. Then there's the problem of lining up Australian tourists for the return trip to the US - since few Americans are likely to sign up for a 40+-day round-trip cruise.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-08-23 10:13  

#2  If you do go to Oz near Christmas, pay the outrageous prices and stay in downtown Sydney for New Year's Eve. The fireworks are incredible. From the roof of the hotel, you can see three or four shows doing exactly the same display at exactly the same time in different parts of the harbor. Positively the best New Year's Eve Party anywhere and the streets are clean at 7:00 am New Year's Day. I don't know how they did it, but my daughters said something about rows of Police horses clearing the streets at 3:00 am followed by the waste trucks.

But reserve early; school summer vacation starts at Christmas, and everybody is out and about.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis   2005-08-23 09:53  

#1  Wonder if they've thought of cruise ships? With all the retirees having done the Med, the Crib, Mexico, and Alaska, I wonder how many would opt for a long cruise?
Posted by: Whineck Cleremp7490   2005-08-23 09:22  

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