Opinion
- Here’s how to cash in on the gap year boom
  
  In this guest posting, Gapyear.com founder Tom Griffiths tells you how to cash in on disappointed UK students who miss out on a university place this year.
  
  UK media reports that 200,000 young people will miss out on university places this year may be overhyped – in truth about 100,000 don’t normally get in anyway – but it’s still a shocking statistic. And an opportunity for you guys Down Under to cash in. Read more »
- Lonely Planet – the gift that keeps on giving
  
  There’s nothing my kids hate more than hearing me start a telling off with the phrase “when I was a kid…” It usually follows them taking an ordinary household item – like the family computer – for granted. Read more »
- ATEC could do worse than appoint the next Matt Hingerty to replace the last one
  
  As a long-suffering England soccer fan, I’ve noticed a trend in the way the Football Association appoints the national team manager. That is, it tends to go for the polar opposite of the man who went before. If you don’t believe me, here’s the recent evidence… Read more »
- Another Wicked piece of marketing
  
  I’ve written about this before, but once again I have to confess to a sneaking admiration for the PR and marketing expertise of John Webb and Wicked Campers. Read more »
- Grounds for cautious optimism, but things could get worse before they get better
  
  Just got back from a couple of weeks in London – surely the world’s most depressed capital city at the moment, but more of that later – and everyone I speak to seems to be 20 per cent down. Read more »
- BOA successfully talks up the ‘Gong and south coast
  
  BOA president Katrina Greeves’ wrap-up on last week’s regional meeting in Wollongong.
  
  Over 10 local South Coast tourism operators joined BOA Committee representatives and members at the ‘BOA Talks South Coast’ event in Wollongong last Thursday to engage in lively debate regarding travel and tourism issues affecting the backpacker, student and youth market in the south coast region. Read more »
- What prison taught me about discounting
  
  Founder of Brokepacker.com Kevin Lippy explains there are three types of discounting ahead of the website’s launch tonight.
  
  A prison yard is a tough, volatile, dangerous, cut throat and an extremely unpredictable environment… Kind of like the Australian backpacking industry during low season. Read more »
- How many backpackers does it take to change a lightbulb?
  
  Thumbrella is conducting an exclusive industry survey this week, with just one question. How many of your customers are idiots? Read more »
- How’s business?
  
  So, how’s business? It’s a simple question, but it seems there’s no easy answer. Read more »
- Australian backpacking is the pulse we watch to gauge the health of the industry worldwide
  
  In this guest post, gapyear.com founder Tom Griffiths relects on the recent ATEC Backpacker and Youth Industry Conference and why Australia’s backpacking industry still leads the world.
  
  Like most of the delegates I spoke to, I found the recent ATEC Backpacker and Youth Industry Conference extremely interesting and useful. It’s very easy in these current times to set a safe agenda to cater for an industry licking its wounds, who want to hear good news stories and see rainbows ahead. Read more »
- McEvoy: ‘Put your tourism experiences on the map’
  
  Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy discusses the first stages of the There’s nothing like Australia campaign and urges the industry to get involved. Read more »
- The Cross needs backpackers to thrive
  
  In this guest post, a Kings Cross backpacker operator who wishes to remain anonymous outlines the benefits backpackers bring to the Cross.
  
  Lately there has been a concerted effort to push out the evil doing, backpacking “scum” from Potts Point together with various articles on your website and other media. Read more »

Face it, Australia has a race (public) relations problem

Attacks on foreign students and escalating racial tension are a PR disaster for Australia’s inbound tourism industry generally, and the burgeoning international student market specifically.

It was only last month in Darwin that delegates at the ATEC Backpacker Conference heard how the sector has seen average growth of 15 per cent year on year in the last 10 years and is now Australia’s third largest export industry, worth a massive A$15.5 billion.

More than 325,000 students began study in Australia in 2008, bringing the total number of international students to half-a-million last year.

And yet all that is being put at serious risk by a handful of racists thugs and the Australian authorities’ apparent unwillingness to admit this country has a problem.

When the Indian Government summoned Australian Ambassador in New Delhi John McCarthy to explain what was going on, he was quoted as saying: ”I have not seen the evidence that they (the attacks) were racist, but I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t discount it.”

And this morning, the Superintendent of the Parramatta Local Command, Robert Redfern, told ABC News two more attacks on Indian students in western Sydney’s Harris Park last night – which sparked protests involving 200 Indian nationals – were opportunistic, not racially motivated.

Now he may be right but, given that no-one has actually been arrested and charged yet, how can he possibly know for certain?

This head-in-the-sand attitude plays incredibly badly overseas, and especially in India where footage of one attack, in which a group of young men wearing hooded jackets punch and kick a man, was repeatedly shown on TV.

Inder Panjwani, General Secretary of the Association of Australian Education Representatives in India (AAERI), an agency that helps students into universities in Australia, is already reporting falling interest as a result of the attacks.

Here’s what the Government should be saying.

- Australia is a largely tolerant country with a small minority of idiots who target ethnic minorities because it makes them feel better about their own inadequacies.

- All necessary steps will be taken to ensure international students enjoy their studies in Australia free of violence, bullying or intimidation.

- Any acts of racial violence will be thoroughly investigated by the police and the guilty punished in the severest terms possible under the law.

If the police in this country doubt what can happen when authorities refuse to acknowledge attacks on ethnic minorities could, just possibly, be racially motivated, they need only look to the Stephen Lawrence case in the UK. The failure of the Metropolitan Police to properly investigate that racist murder 16 years ago fatally undermined the faith of London’s black community in the force’s ability or willingness to ensure its safety. The repercussions continue to this day.

At the moment, officials in Australia are behaving like a bunch of alcoholics in denial. Until they admit they’ve got a problem, they won’t be able to start dealing with it.

And while they dither, a generation of international students – not just those from India – will choose somewhere else to broaden their minds.

By Martin Lane · June 9th, 2009 at 3:57 pm