Begging with one hand and Slapping with the other.
Tourism Whitsundays followed our lead recently and have started to lobby the airline companies for more flights in and out of Proserpine. The said they have conducted a survey amongst Hamilton Island and Proserpine Airport passengers, and its website, and in total has received over 1500 responses.
However, what I find interesting is that publicly, Tourism Whitsundays (TW) says it is cosying up to the airlines to try and convince them to service the Whitsundays more, yet it appears that two of their directors have exposed further disunity within TW and publicly started 'airline bashing' on the front page of the local paper, the Whitsunday Times.Kelli Medford (Boathaven Resort) and John Aquilina (Waters Edge Resort), both on the Board of Directors of TW, openly and publicly slammed the airlines on the front page of the Whitsunday Times only 2 weeks ago (article pictured).
*29 October 2009 - Whitsunday Times (unable to find story)
Peter O'Reilly, CEO of TW says they are about to commence lobbying the airlines for more flights in and out of Whitsunday Coast - Proserpine.
6 Jan 2010 - Whitsunday Times - Front Page
Tourism Whitsunday Directors Kelli Medford & John Aquilina publicly accuse the airlines of high air fare prices as "not affordable for the average middle class Aussie family." The article does not say that Ms Medford and Mr Aquilina are Directors of Tourism Whitsundays.
13 Jan 2010 - Whitsunday Times
"TOURISM Whitsundays (TW) will receive a special funding grant of $57,000 to help encourage more flights to the region and further develop the region as an events hub. The money is part of $1 million in state funding for Queensland’s 14 regional tourism bodies".
(The Whitsundays scored a lot less than our neighbours at Capricorn Tourism, who received $72,000).
Ms Medford originally exposed disunity within Tourism Whitsundays late last year in this correspondence.
Disclaimer
*On 16 October - Whitsundays Online, commenced lobbying the airlines on behalf of all in the Whitsundays - I made contact with the executive of Regional Express (Rex), the newcomer to QLD Aviation. As of today, they are still investigating the possibillities of servicing Proserpine in the near future. 2 weeks later, Mr O'Reilly advised TW had also commenced lobbying the airlines.
According to Peter O'Reilly, CEO of Tourism Whitsundays, another 700 rooms (an increase of 50%) will be available this year in an already over supplied Airlie Beach.
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