Domestic tourism has been positively affected by the visit and subsequent broadcasts of Australia by American small-screen icon Oprah Winfrey the Tourism Australia boss has told e-Travel Blackboard.
“I was blown away, during the time she was here in December and then when the shows went to air, by how much more Australians have focused on their own country,” Tourism Australia (TA) managing director Andrew McEvoy told e-Travel Blackboard at last week’s Australian Tourism Exchange.
“If you talk to some of the operators like Hamilton Island, Andrew Byrnes from AOT, they saw an upturn in enquiries and bookings [domestically] about Australia during the Oprah phenomenon.”
“It was not something that we had designed it to do, but it still happened.”
Asked if he was now “best buds” with Oprah, Mr McEvoy replied although he only met her a few times, he did “get a sense of her”, adding “he was pretty amazed by her”.
“She genuinely is a heartfelt person, who has a really strong message...and the good thing for us is she used Australia as a backdrop,” the TA boss said.
“To have the world’s best known broadcaster be a mouthpiece for Australia was just an incredible opportunity that we took, and she really celebrated our country, which has been great.”
Meanwhile, 61 per cent of the 48 million people in North America who saw Oprah’s shows claim they are actively researching an Australian vacation, whilst 3.3 per cent claim to have already booked holidays, according to Mr McEvoy.
(Source: eTravelBlackboard, 11th April 2011)
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