Tourism Australia Plans Publicity Blitz to Regain Tourist Confidence

Tourism Australia is to launch a major publicity campaign to lure international visitors to the country. The initiative follows recent riots and consequential issuance of caution against traveling by various travel advisories. Tourism Australia is planning several campaigns, with a particular focus on the US and European markets.

New South Wales (NSW) Premier Morris Lemma made a personal plea to international tourists to ignore travel warnings, according to local media. “My message is very simple,” he said. “It is a great city to come to, it is a great city to live in, and the message over summer will be that those 800 police will be out in force. This is a safe city.”

Tourism Australia chairman Tim Fischer called on the judiciary to take a tougher stand with those charged with rioting. “I don´t like what happened a few weeks ago, but the authorities will deal with violent crime and they will deal with it even better if the police get the support they deserve,” he reportedly said. “Any powder puff processing or sentencing by magistrates or judges, who do work hard, that will be very badly received by the community.”

Fischer said there had so far been no signs of tourists staying away. “The airlines are saying ´no impact to report at this stage´ and we stand ready with a very big approach to 2006 to really shore up international tourism coming to this country,” he said.

Recent outbreaks of race-related violence have prompted Britain, Canada and Indonesia to issue travel warnings against visiting parts of Sydney.