Opinion
- 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 »
- There’s nothing like Australia’s violence on tourists…at least according to Google
  
  News in Sydney’s media of a young Scottish tourist who had been bashed by a group of youths in Sydney this week got me thinking, is violence in Australia towards foreigners worse than anywhere else or is it just because we’re here that we hear about it? Read more »
- Vote Australia – you know it makes sense
  
  If, as expected, British prime minister Gordon Brown goes to Buckingham Palace later today and asks the Queen to dissolve parliament, there will be a general election in the UK on Thursday May 6. Read more »
- Morrissey was right – life IS very long when you’re lonely…
  
  Last month I faced a classic publishing dilemma. When stories surfaced in the national press that a harvest work contractor in Bundaberg had allegedly sacked backpackers after they asked for water, my colleagues on the Backpacker Tourism Advisory Panel urged me to publish a story in TNT Magazine informing readers of their workplace rights. Read more »

Sam catches a Tiger by the tail

When you hire a celebrity presenter with a reputation for straight shooting, there’s always a risk they might turn their fire on your sponsors, and so it proved at this year’s Golden Backpack Awards.

AFL legend and red meat campaigner Sam Kekovich was in unforgiving mood when he heard Tiger Airways communications manager Vanessa Regan was running late, allegedly because her flight had been delayed. Despite insisting the problem was caused by a clueless Sydney taxi driver rather than her own airline, Regan found herself on the wrong end of a withering tirade from Sam the man, who told her: “Don’t give us all that bullshit. If your plane was late, say it was f**king late.”

He went on to advise her the airline should make more noise about the fact it now offers 18 routes across Australia. “That’s the sort of marketing I want to hear,” he added.

Not satisfied with hammering the low cost carrier, his next target was Westpac and banks in general – a somewhat unfortunate choice with St George Bank relationship manager and Golden Backpack Awards general category sponsor Simon Drumm sitting in the audience.

Strangely, one sponsor Kekovich did let off the hook was Sleepmaker national account manager Chris Sencek who, in announcing the finalists for best hostel in New Zealand, inadvertently referred to Base Wanaka as Base Wanker. Fortunately, after a tip-off from event manager Denise Jinks, he corrected the mistake for best tour or activity and carefully pronounced Skydive Lake Wanaka the right way.

Luckily for the organisers, all Sam’s victims took the ribbing in good part and even Tiger’s Regan was pleased with the number of times the airline got a mention – proving there really is no such thing as bad publicity.

By Martin Lane · November 10th, 2009 at 10:46 am