Alexander Downer, the Federal Government’s Foreign Minister launched the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Smart Traveller media and PR campaign yesterday revealing that DFAT will be spending $13 million of taxpayers money over the next four years on the campaign to advise Australians travelling overseas to take out travel insurance, register their travel arrangements on the www.smartraveller.gov.au site and check travel advisories before they leave Australia.
The campaign is also designed to explain to travellers the extent and limitations of Australian government support when they encounter problems when travelling abroad, with AFTA CEO Mike Hatton introducing Mr Downer to the meeting of 75 travel industry, media and DFAT attendees at the Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney yesterday.
Mr Downer’s address included some anecdotal accounts of travellers who had experienced great expense and inconvenience because of a failure to purchase travel insurance when travelling overseas and failing to register with the Australian Government when travelling for extended periods.
He also expressed his appreciation for the travel industry’s support of the Smartraveller campaign, stating that the Government’s travel advisories sought to offer complete and accurate advice about the circumstances which may impact on travellers all over the world, although as The Mole reported on Friday, this sometimes goes too far stating the “bleeding obvious” with last week issuing a Travel Advisory to Ireland which included that because it rains a lot in Ireland the roads get wet!
The TV ads premiered at the launch were highly professional and should help to reinforce the message to the public of ensuring travellers take out insurance and register with Smartraveler.
The dodgy prawn advertisement may instigate a rash of jokes, some of which will almost certainly be at DFAT’s expense, but I am happy to report that the bits on sticks did include the odd prawn but fortunately in keeping with the normal very high standards at Sydney’s Intercontinental Hotel, there were no dodgy prawns at this DFAT launch!
A report by David Beirman, TravelMole’s Travel and Tourism Crisis Management Correspondent.
