Comment on After years of under-achieving, tourism promoters say they are getting cracking by Russell Guy.
The general tone of underlying exasperation in this report by the Alice Springs News is widely felt. We have constructed a mega-bureaucracy around tourist promotion. There are so many cogs in the gearbox, but the wheel has no traction.
The jargon-speak, high-salaried executives quoted in your article are out of touch. The number of “Britz” type vehicles on the NT roads is considerable and if you combine that with the caravans and off-road trailers, plus the backpacker vans, it’s fairly easy to see that this mobile corps is more interested in a bush experience than hanging around Alice for an event that, as you correctly state, lasts for a maximum of four days.
Tourism promotion should get back to basics. Our past is famous, our present a muddle, our future uncertain.
Some talk about an “Aboriginal Culture Centre” while Indigenous cultures in central Australia are undermined by alcoholism and a laissez faire welfare failing to enforce work ethic.
We have the most incredible bird-life, ant-eaters, echidnas, kangaroos, emus, lizards, reptiles and flora (decorative and edible), much of which has been recorded by our pioneers and artists, but very few opportunities for tourists to access it in the wild.
QANTAS can only operate with numbers, so why don’t we work with them by drawing tourists with the natural assets of fauna, landscape, flora, culture and events, in that order. Along the way, factor in the famous past, co-operative spirit and bush hospitality without focusing on the mistakes or politics.
Compared to Western Queensland, the NT is missing the “Outback” brand big time. No imagination and no “can do” is the defining schtick. No “Waltzing Matilda”, no Songlines, just booze by the bucket load. No floor price, but a seven day a week takeaway sales, no small-picture-operator based-profiling writ large. And the imminent election is sounding the gong for more of the same.
Russell Guy Also Commented
After years of under-achieving, tourism promoters say they are getting cracking
Jason,
Please see below posted @ May 29 and the posts accompanying the Alex Nelson story with the Black Cockatoo pics.
After years of under-achieving, tourism promoters say they are getting cracking
Jason,
I’ve answered some of the questions you’ve asked here at two different posts, including the Alex Nelson story a couple of weeks ago.
I know we don’t agree on alcohol reform, but it would be appreciated if you could see your way towards agreeing (or not) on the points I’ve made about tourism, which seem to answer your questions, or is it that nobody really wants any answers, because that’s what it seems like.
Recent Comments by Russell Guy
New abattoir for Alice? Some cattle men pushing for it.
@ Trevor Shiell: I’ve been following your posts for some time and they are so on the money that I almost feel depressed after reading your sustained critique of government apathy when it comes to your table of viable industry and opportunities missed.
What is it?
Are you so far ahead of your time that you are dismissed for being a prophet (we don’t do prophets much anymore) or is it that nobody, including MLAs can be bothered to debate you?
The almost total silence that greets your researched posts is a wonder in itself.
I wonder how you can keep posting in the face of such indifference, but, as has been noted in the Broken Window of Tolerance story on these pages, hope springs eternal.
It’s another wonder than nobody has bottled it and sold it in the Mall.
Youth crisis: broken window of tolerance
This is a clear distillation of much of what has been said in these pages for a number of years by many people trying to rationalise the progressive liberalism which has left a legacy of seven days per week takeaway alcohol.
Social engineering is a term used to describe social movements and their effect, but present alcohol reform is deconstructing modern social policy by trying to rationalise liberal supply and its pathology.
The Cultural Revolution that brought sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll to the post-war generation, many of whom became politicians, is as much implicated as anything else when it comes to determining the kind of values societies need to follow in a postmodern world.
Collective memoir of Tracker wins top prize
Great to see that memoir, too long stuck in a rut of selected facts, is forging ahead as a genre that can be worked into a prize-winning consideration and that Australian literature is recognised as being capable of speaking to a present-day cultural reality. Congratulations to the author.
In a flap over flags – a possible compromise?
I think your idea has merit, Alex and I hope it gets up. I made a similar point a month ago concerning other strategic vantage points for the Aboriginal flag, posted 20th February, 2018 at 2:03pm: http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/2018/02/13/aboriginal-flag-on-anzac-hill-the-nays-have-it/
Feel free to try this at home
The last Sunday in March is apparently ‘Neighbourhood Day’ around Australia. This morning, I was given a free cup of tea at a market stall, announcing the event.
A gent next to me said, “G’day, neighbour.”
I was momentarily affronted that he would break into my morning to tell me this after having had my home broken into during the weak.
I told him so and said that I would get over it, but it’s not the first time I’ve been robbed and I’m bruised.
The flyer that came with the free cuppa said: “The principal aim of Neighbour Day is to build better relationships with the people who live around us. Neighbours are important because good relationships with others can and do change communities, connections help prevent loneliness, isolation and depression. Reach out to families with children and teenagers in your community to help them connect and belong.”
I haven’t exactly been shy about doing this for most of my adult life, but I’m tired, burnt-out, lonely and depressed enough to be affronted by a simple act of goodwill from an anonymous man, posing as a neighbour at a market stall on Saturday morning.
Does anyone else feel like this?
