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Sports |
STILL down there, Sunday evening: Today was a glorious day in the
Queensland capital – slight breeze, pleasant sunshine and the walkways
along the river that divides the city were thronged with families with
babies in strollers, teenagers, mums and dads and senior citizens ... all
of them strolling through the beautiful parklands that fringe the
waterway.
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IT seems our tourism authorities can make little impact on the market in
Oz. Wherever you go, there are
displays, shop fronts, sponsored events and all kinds of PR pushing the
attractions of just about every country in the South Pacific – except PNG.
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YESTERDAY’S Courier-Mail was a case in point. A full page ad offered four
days and three nights at the Shangri-La or the Plantation Resort on Fiji
from A$995 including the return flight by Air Pacific. Well, you might
say, that’s an attempt to claw back tourists in the wake of the recent
coup.
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SO let’s look at what the same firm offered in Samoa, or Vanuatu. A$1,595
will secure your stay at Aggie Grey’s Lagoon Beach resort in Samoa. That
includes airfares on Polynesian Blue – one of Sir Richard Branson’s
initiatives – and six days at Aggie Grey’s.
***
IN Vanuatu, you can stay at Le Lagon resort. That also comes at A$1,595,
with all air fares on Air Vanuatu and includes all meals and all drinks
all day for six days!
Others on offer: Norfolk Island for as little as A$1,389 – seven nights
including most meals and four tours through the island, plus, of course,
the air fares.
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OR perhaps you prefer the Pacific islands’s last
surviving monarchy, Tonga? The island kingdom can now be experienced –
for just A$1,295, the Dateline Hotel offers full accommodation including
breakfast, lunch and dinner for seven nights and the return
Polynesian Blue air fare.
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WE clearly have to lift our tourism PR game if we want to make any real
impact in this market.
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TWO of the above countries have had major civil unrest in the past month,
yet the tourists are flocking back again. Is our law and order situation
such an all-defining drawback? And if it is, it’s time we did something
about it.
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– Dee Nesenolis
 
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