It appears that P&O this week, not surprisingly decided that all publicity is not good publicity, by booting what appears to be a Channel 7 TV crew off the Pacific Star, which left Brisbane last Wednesday on 10 night Peach Sunsets cruise.
It appears that the reason P&O Cruises Australia put the four passengers ashore in Vila yesterday was for “filming on board for commercial purposes without permission” and in a statement P&O said, “They have been filming without the knowledge and consent of passengers in what we consider to be an invasion of privacy, with this practice against our company policy and they continued despite the Captain’s personal requests for them to stop.”
The statement also said “the principal member of the film crew had been identified as having covertly filmed on Pacific Star for Channel 7’s Today Tonight earlier this year.”
TravelMole subscribers will recall that Today Tonight filmed undercover on board Pacific Star earlier in the year revealing extremely questionable and inappropriate behaviour by passengers and crew, coming a the time of the coronial inquest into the death of a passenger, Dianne Brimble, in circumstances related to alcohol and a ‘date-rape’ drug allegations on board Pacific Sky in 2002.
The inquest into Ms Brimble’s death will resume November 6 with the Channel 7 filming coming at the time of the circumstances surrounding the allegations related to her death and the Today Tonight broadcast, damaging P&O’s brand in Australia with the Company understood to have implemented substantial damage control strategies to protect their dominance in the Australian market place.
P&O was also heavily criticised and had to apologise for inappropriate advertising campaigns and it is reported that the Channel 7 was filming a follow up story assessing if P&O had implemented the claimed policies to control and change the behaviour experienced earlier in the year and in the alleged circumstances surrounding Ms Brimble’s death.
It is assumed that the crew was not filming for Channel 7’s Great Outdoors travel programme.
Report by The Mole
