Sunday, January 29, 2012

Shark Diving Industry Thank You to Tourism Minister Gail Gago!

Tourism Minister Gail Gago's new shark plane, this is how you do it folks!
Mention commercial shark diving and we'll show you years of media turmoil surrounding any particular site on the planet.

Except for Fiji.

Most of the media discontent is based on one simple fact.

Regional politicians and tourism officials are usually too timid to stand behind our industry.

In some places politicians even callously use our industry as a wedge issue, calling in and stoking what amounts to media air strikes on operations that have exhibited nothing but 100% operational excellence. Believe it, it happens.

But thankfully we have Australia this week to show the way. 

Tourism Minister Gail Gago has unveiled a new, rare, and forward thinking partnership with regional shark diving operators and airlines to bring more tourists to where the sharks are in the form of a white shark cage diving airplane:

"Ninety nine percent of tourism is marketing, is selling a message. We know that people fatigue to messages very quickly, so the trick is to try to keep creating novel and clever, and new and innovative ways to get your message across", says Minister Gago.

We could not have said it better, and Kudos to Minister Gail Gago from an entire global industry this week.