By Ian Neubauer

The Federal Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson, has acknowledged last year’s ‘So Where the Bloody Hell Are You?‘ campaign has failed.

“So Where The Bloody Hell Are You has been a dismal failure and we have put it in the can,” the minister said at a Sydney press conference marking the engagement of the director Barry Luhrmann to produce a new campaign to promote Australia oversees.

“We all know that tourism in this country is doing it tough. What we have is a great product that has to compete in a tough global market,” he said, listing the soaring dollar, the high cost of fuel and new competition from emerging markets like Vietnam as contributing factors.

Tourism Australia chairman, Rick Allert, added that the old campaign had fared especially dismally in Asia and the new campaign would be modelled differently for Eastern and Western audiences.

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