Tourism Whitsundays competition turns into farce

Update Aug 6 2010
Our local paper, the Whitsunday Times, has in the past left out stories that were bad publicity for our local RTO, Tourism Whitsundays. It is believed they do this due to a commercial relationship between the two.
This poor tradition continued this week with the non-inclusion of this story.
Other similar instances can be found here:
Missing (on paper)
The Times they aren't a-Changin'
Do the Whitsundays deserve to hear both sides of the story?


Original Story - Sunday Aug 1 2010
Tourism Whitsundays has again shown that it's online services are detrimental to our region's tourism industry, by holding another competition, which has turned into a farce. 

Tourism Whitsundays' latest competition has seen a winner announced, to only be reversed a little later. The first winner was shamed publicly on Tourism Whitsundays' facebook site for not following the rules and that her win had been reversed.

That person again was re-awarded as being the winner, again, the next day, after many protests; (I wonder how many Tourism Whitsundays deleted). This was no gimmick prize - 7 nights accommodation for two.

It appears that alcohol being consumed in the workplace has contributed to this latest marketing disaster to hit the Whitsundays community by Tourism Whitsundays.

You would like to think that a responsible RTO, that has just been given $770,000 by the Labor State and  local governments would be hard at work.

Or maybe they were celebrating with the new Queensland taxpayers and Whitsundays ratepayers money.

It appears that Tourism Whitsundays condones 'drinking on the job' according to their Facebook page (left).

Any one with the tiniest bit of common and marketing sense knows that you don't PUI - "Post Under the Influence". Well, Tourism Whitsundays didn't just post, but it also appears that their judgement for the winner of the competition was impaired by alcohol, which has then resulted in this farce.

* Do some of the staff, management and/or directors have a problem with alcohol that they can't wait until after they have left work to start drinking?

OK, so if Tourism Whitsundays Management and 'Marketing Geniuses' who ran this flop do not blame alcohol for the farce, then it must be incompetence, again. Remember the Airlie Beach Apartment Give Away? Probably the biggest flop ever - read here for more on that episode.

This is gross irresponsibility and it has to stop now. Unfortunately, this pen is not that mighty, so its time to try the sword.

It's time to remove this incompetent RTO from any representative duties: they represent less than 5% of businesses in the region and it's time we stood up and stop them from destroying everyone's future.

It's time to do more that just talk like a pirate . . . .



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