Tourism Australia: Time to get it right.

Australia is a country that is always selling its wears; whether it be natural resources of coal, bottles of award winning wine, our natural wonders of the world or our amazing designers, artist, actors, directors, event planners and choreographers (ahem London Olympics 2012) We are always looking for a way to make our great country the envy of the world.

The latest trick up the sleeve is to combine the struggling and off the pace Australian Tourism agency with the entrepreneurial prowess of Virgin Australia (hello Richard Branson and your many, many friends in high places) With this blossoming friendship comes the bulging price tag of $6 million over 3 years. So what will this friendship and dollars actually get us?

• A potential of 10 offshore key markets with a focus on the United States of America and other countries like: New Zealand, United Kingdom, Continental Europe, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Japan and Singapore.
• Alliances with following: Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines, Delta Airlines and Etihad Airways. These airlines fly into every country we are targeting, making the connection of inbound flights a non-issue.

But what seems to tug at my heart strings is the lack of Qantas involvement, although it says Virgin Australia, Qantas is the airline of Australia and that Kangaroo is an instant point of reference. Of recent however, Qantas has been less than patriotic and their public reputation is in tatters with their recent union tiffs and increase of off shore jobs, Virgin Australia, may be the smarter, more reliable and widely accepted means of promotion and partnership. 

Now back to business, there will be a combination of traditional and digital media platforms, if utilised efficiently and effectively this will make for an interesting campaign strategy. There will also be the use of event and sponsorship activities that will include the Australian Tourism Agency campaign message "There's nothing like Australia". Indeed there is no place like Australia and for those of us that are well travelled we know this full and well, however what it seems our promotional efforts in the past have lacked is that ability to portray to the great wide world that Australia is an incredibly unique, diverse and thoroughly awe inspiring land. Fingers crossed this campaign will not tag us as chain dragging, ill-spoken country men, screaming at potential tourist "where the bloody hell are you?". We have become a much more sophisticated bunch since our early settlement days and we were quite repelled by the campaign, despite our own knowledge that we are nothing like that and have much more to offer than beaches and bikinis.

I intend to keep on pulse with this campaign to see what we treasures we can pull of the ever elusive kangaroo pouch. Please don't let us down...again.

Watch this space people!