Thursday 27 January 2011

Ferguson says G'Day USA

Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson has left on a mission to take advantage of the hype around last week's airing of Oprah Winfrey's four Ultimate Australian Adventure episodes.

Mr Ferguson plans to meet with senior industry representatives in Los Angeles, Washington, New York and Houston in order to promote Australia as a premier destination for Americans.

He also attended G'Day USA, an annual program designed to showcase Australian business capabilities in the USA.

"Americans have seen over the past few days just what an amazing country Australia is," Mr Ferguson said.

"It has always been a highly desirable travel destination for Americans and now we will be encouraging them not just to think about a holiday to Australia, but to go ahead and book one."

Meanwhile, Tourism Australia's managing director Andrew McEvoy, who also attended G'Day USA wrote home saying there were “huge inquiry and booking spikes and Cairns and Port Douglas are a big part of this.’

Reporter's comments: Is Mr Ferguson the best person to be promoting Australia? From what I've seen of him during interviews he doesn't appear to get too excited about much at all, except maybe the prospect of a junket, sorry, mission to the US.

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