Tourism promotion is a weird thing. Like the unrolling the huge ball of string come to Melbourne message (?) which hardly survived its unravelling by the Chaser. Something I read recently about the career end of Geoff Dixon as CEO of Qantas pointed out that one of the challenges for an Australian airline is that Australia is only on the way to Antarctica. So how to induce people to come here? Efforts to promote the joint seem to waver between “natural beauty” messages and weird distillations of Ozculture - whatever that might be. Perhaps it’s Lara Bingle? Now we’ve got Baz Luhrmann either leveraging his new movie - Australia - you know the one, our Nic’s in it - for a government sponsored tourism campaign, or, alternatively, leveraging Australia off a movie with the same title. Did I get that right? It’s all very recursive!
Would it just have been simpler if we’d made Lord of the Rings here? Worked for NZ tourism. With tons of Australian actors… How *do* you market/represent/thematise a post-colonial culture?
It’s worth flying here to live, not to visit, that’s the problem. I hope Nicole’s not going to feature. She always looks like a pointy nosed psycho to me. The rehabbing hubby and the fruit cake short arse ex hubby always seem like the normal ones to me.
An even bigger problem is that the campaigns are often run by governments whom get an ego thing going, so the campaign becomes an effort to validate the culture, rather than sell it.
Which means an ad campaign might come out promoting Sydney as a world city for instance. The problem being that world cities are, well, all around the world.
Yet somehow they still manage to produce their own share of cringe inducing campaigns. The worst of both worlds it seems.
I wish that it could be more accepted that the problem isn’t branding, but merely exchange rates, and that isn’t being solved except by recession here or a boom elsewhere, massively reduced interest rates, the end of all mining, or a return to a fixed exchange rate. But if the debate continues throughout the media, is it likely that a voice saying “Sometimes advertising is completely useless and a waste of money” would be published/broadcast?
Great question well framed. Imperialism, in its many forms, and its power to define culture in absolute terms makes it hard for the post-colonial, who must struggle to define identity against imperialism.
Australia always falls back on the natural environment, and why not, but it is also the most inalienable, essential aspect of the country.
Some interesting alternatives come from Singapore and Malaysia, I think, while my favourite post-colonial nation, Taiwan, still hasn’t got it right, despite extraordinary natural beauty (tallest mountains east of the Himalayas) and a rich indigenous and settler culture.
http://eng.taiwan.net.tw/lan/Cht/search/index.asp
And just exactly what are YOU doing for Australia????? Easy to criticize, not so easy to come up with ideas. Your Nicole is a great actress, too bad you’re still in the dark about that!
I saw the (unbelievably long) trailer for this before The Dark Knight. Just so overblown and laughably propagandistic. Quite embarrassing, actually.
Don’t mind our Nic.
But. the experience of roughing it going bush has always been something like this: -5 degrees campong out in winter, stewp out of the tent, frost all round, water frozen so you can’t make a hot cup of coffee first thing in the moening;
or
Its so bloody hot and sweaty you’re sitting in your underpants inside the tent and you feel like you haven’t washed for days, but its only two hours since your morning shower.
or
Around sunset camping by a coastal river you can’;t see much because of the bloodsy mosquitoes, and you’re bitten all over, have no insecxt repellant and are miles from the nearest shop.
Now if we put something like that in a commercial.
“Its so bloody hot and sweaty you’re sitting in your underpants inside the tent and you feel like you haven’t washed for days, but its only two hours since your morning shower.”
UR DOIN IT RONG
That’s a shrewd comment about government-funded ads wanting to validate not sell the culture, Richard.
Of course even a good government-sponsored ad campaign would be a giant WOFTAM because the tourism industry’s travails are all about the high Aussie dollar and the oil-driven cost of air transport. The upside of this is that a lousy campaign can’t do much worse.
And I suppose that in the scheme of things it’s a pretty minor picking of the taxpayer’s pocket compared to the larceny some industries manage.
I agree.
The bulk of punters drift to where it’s cheap. For example, US tourism to Europe has clif-dived in 2008 with the cliff-dive of the US dollar. Europe haslost none of its innate allure.
In addition to observations made by others, I’d query who “you” is in this question.
I think this comment by Richard Green is very astute:
Why are any of these ads on Australian media? All who see them already live here or have forked out the readies to get here as tourists.
Clearly these ads are designed at least in part, at public expense, to make us feel good about ourselves.
And don’t knock the Melbourne String ad. Tourism to Melbourne has grown rapidly because Melbourne has subtlely sold itself as Not Australia.
You can’t get much more post-colonial than that: “Come to the place that isn’t the place you’re coming to.”
I always rather liked Roy and HG’s offering myself.
We can tell them that Australia is only on the way to New Zealand. Problem solved.
I hate to be a know-it-all (as I’m clearly not, I didn’t know this until I looked it up) but the wikipedia list of mountains by elevation has any number of peaks east of the Himalayas that are higher than Yu Shan (Mount Jade - 3952m), the highest peak in Taiwan. There are a bunch over 6000m in South America and Puncak Jaya in Indonesian west Papua at 4884m is almost a kilometre higher than Yu Shan.
Jus’ sayin’
aidan -
South America is, in this Eurocentric world, west of the Himalaya (that’s why they call India “the East”). The International Date Line runs through the Pacific.
Jus’ sayin’
“And don’t knock the Melbourne String ad. Tourism to Melbourne has grown rapidly because Melbourne has subtlely sold itself as Not Australia.”
Yup. Every other state is flogging visiting and posing in front of objects, counting coup with photographs on a building, a rock, a reef, a beach or a desert.
Whereas Victoria’s flogging an experience - deftly niche marketed to domestic tourists, backpackers, the business convention market and baby boomer second honeymoons. Which is why, after a decade of a very cleverly segmented but holistic campaign, Victoria, with none of the natural advantages of other states keeps enjoying steady tourism growth.
Let’s face it, we’re just fuckin’ smarter than the rest of you.
Well, there’s also a thing called culture.
But seriously, faux-schnobbery aside, there’s bands. Music, bands, and pubs.
Im going to be brutal:
1. Australian pubs are wihtout exception complete and utter rubbish, possibly the worst in the world, except for Melbourne pubs - which are completely f*cking brilliant; and
2. the rest of this wide brown country is a f*cking desert for live music.
There.
OTOH if you like swimming, dont come down. The Beaches are absolute rubbish here.
“there’s bands. Music, bands, and pubs.”
We don’t see it here, but abroad Tourism Victoria has some very sharp ads, with clever media buys, flogging exactly that point to Euro gap year backpackers. Queenstown NZ for the physical thrills and Melbourne Australia for the beats and cool bars.
I didnt know that Nabs, but stands to reason.
Interesting to see Australia. Baz Lurhmann’s only made three features thus far. But he’s quite different from every other Australian director in that he’s able to utilize the Global Stage and Hollywood and still remain relevant to his country’s culture. I thought Romeo + Juliet a very Australian film.
.
But I think that film stands out from the other two because of the quality writing which obviously wasn’t done by us. People disagree but I think Moulin Rouge failed content wise. The packaging was however, spectacular.
.
We’ll see.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the new Luhrmann pic, here: http://airminded.org/2008/06/09/no-strzelecki/ Ignore the stuff about the flying boat, the most interesting part is that evidently the bombing of Darwin in 1942 and its fairly disgraceful aftermath playsa big part in the story. That is potentially very interesting indeed, since it’s largely unknown to the general public, and moreover wouldn’t seem to offer much scope for the heroic myths of Australian martial valour that usually get trotted out in films like this. (Not to say that those myths are always untrue, but hey, sometimes we screw up without it being the fault of the British …) But it will probably end up disappointing me on that score.
“I thought Romeo + Juliet a very Australian film.”
Hmmm. I thought it was a very Australian way of retelling a classic story about teenagers caught up in major gang warfare. It’s the difference that makes a difference.
Hey Nabs, it was a maxim was it not, that the only good things that came out of Victoria were some highways heading north?
(before Iemma of course)
Brett @ 19,
It’s a long while since I’ve read it, but I think Xavier Herbert’s Poor Fellow My Country covers the first Darwin raid and aftermath extensively, if I recall xcorrectly. From what I’ve heard of Lehrman’s Australia, I rhink he might have read it. Will be interesting to see.
In a feat of promotional magic, Tourism Victoria has turned Melbourne’s once grotty laneways into the coolest spots on the continent.
http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/melbourne_details.php?id=9408
Cooler even than the Hume Highway.
Yep, the ball of string ad worked a treat and it was probably helped along by the Chaser.
‘Australia’ sounds a lot like a 1950s film called ‘The Overlanders’ made by Ealing in Australia and directed by Harry Watt. It was also about a massive cattle drive in World War II. It’s a really good film and has Chips Rafferty as the anti-John Wayne. When action is called for Chips hooks his leg over his saddle pommel, rolls himself a ciggy and has a good old ponder. By the time he’s worked out what to do, the emergency is over. It also has very feisty, stockwhip cracking heroine. Good fun.
As a native South Australian, I have to (and hate to) concede you’re right about Melbourne, Nabs. (And not just Melbourne, and not just recently. When I lived in Bendigo 30-odd years ago, there were always good things happening at the Rising Sun - Uncanny X-Men, Bo Diddley, The Dugites, Mike Rudd, … ) Adelaide, by comparison, fares very badly for live music.
Hey Guido
“Geoff Dixon as CEO of Qantas pointed out that one of the challenges for an Australian airline is that Australia is only on the way to Antarctica.”
Yes, we’re on the way to NZ. Even some Amricans go to NZ via Sydney, and whinge endlessly about the 34 hour trip.
Autralia is on the way to Asia if you’re travelling from Tassie.
It’s also on the way to Bali or Sri Lanka if you hail from Whakatane. It’s on the way to South frica if youse live in Hawaii. Gee, Geoff, the possibilities are endless. Just keep your planes airborne, OK? Let others ponder the mysteries of tourists’ choices.