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Liberal Party urges Aussies to take a ‘Staycation’

The Liberal Party has launched a campaign to encourage Australians to stay in Australia for their holidays.

‘Staycation’ is the brainchild of Shadow Minister for Tourism and Regional Development Bob Baldwin, who features in a 2.5 minute tour of Australia’s top holiday destinations.

The video is being distributed via email and social media to drive people to the Staycation.org.au website.

The main thrust of the campaign is a competition which asks Aussies to send in videos, pics and stories of their favourite holiday destinations on ‘I Love Oz’ Facebook page and to drive traffic to the About Australia website.

Adam Joseph, Baldwin’s advisor, told Mumbrella that the campaign did not reflect poorly on Tourism Australia, which has also tried to boost domestic tourism using the same idea.

TA launched a campaign calling on Australians to share their Aussie holiday experiences in September last year.

Joseph said: “TA do an excellent job promoting Australia under very challenging international economic conditions. TA is constantly innovating to keep Australia ‘top of mind’ when travel decisions are made, and Bob is particularly keen on the work they’re doing in digital and social. In fact, the Aussie holiday competition that Staycation is running with about-australia.com is based on a TA initiative which asks people to send photos and info on great places to see.”

Regardless of the party in office, the campaign will run for the whole of 2012.

Joseph added that the campaign neither “solicits a vote for an alternative federal coalition government, nor does it highlight the underinvestment in the tourism sector under Labor.”

Baldwin points to figures from the Tourism & Transport Forum which show that while ten years ago Australia was making $3bn from tourism, the country now loses $7bn as result of Australians taking holidaying overseas.

The production company behind the video was Unseen Productions. The campaign’s Facebook presence was managed by Tribe Count.

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