VIEW News

Premier Anna Bligh and former Best Job in the World Island Caretaker Ben Southall invited almost four million Americans and Canadians to Queensland and the Sunshine Coast during his recent North American promotional tour.

Ms Bligh said Ben was in North America on the first leg of a global publicity tour in his new role as a Queensland Tourism Ambassador and to attend G’Day USA – an annual celebration of all things Australian.

Ms Bligh also attended G’Day USA and undertook several media engagements with Ben as part of a North American trade mission.

“An analysis of the promotional work by Tourism Queensland has shown that Ben’s North American tour has generated around $500,000 in publicity value in the US and Australia,” said Ms Bligh.

“For the past six months Ben has been exploring the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and bringing the world to Queensland to share his experiences.

“Now that his stint as Island Caretaker has ended, his new focus is to travel to Queensland’s major international tourism markets and take Queensland to them via a series of media and travel industry engagements.”

Ms Bligh said during his US trip Ben had appeared on major television talk shows such as the Today Show, which has an estimated 1.5 million viewers, cable news show Fox & Friends, with around 700,000 viewers, on a variety of US radio and Canadian television and radio programs in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto.

He also appeared on the radio show of Oprah’s best friend Gayle King, who has a huge following.

While in New York Ben and the Premier also handed out Queensland beach bags to passers-by in Times Square and mailed a letter to US President Barack Obama inviting him to visit Queensland during his upcoming Australian trip.

“The US is a significant international market for the Sunshine Coast and in the year to September 2009, 13,000 Americans visited the region,” Ms Bligh said.

“12,000 Canadians also visited and if even one percent of the four million or so North Americans who heard Ben speak about his adventures decide to come to Queensland that would be an additional 40,000 visitors – many of whom would place the Sunshine Coast on their list.”

Ms Bligh said Australia had long been number one on North Americans' list of "must see" destinations while the Great Barrier Reef is one of Australia’s "must see" attractions.

“Americans and Canadians have been some of the biggest followers of The Best Job in the World so North America was the perfect place for Ben to kick off his global promotional tour and G’Day USA was the perfect time.”

Ms Bligh said while at G’Day USA she had also launched of two fantastic vacation deals to Queensland with Qantas and V Australia.

“Queensland is actually the shortest flight time from the US and these deals are designed to get Americans to fly direct to the state, which makes it easier to visit a range of destinations.

“While they may not have been able to get the Best Job in the World, they do have the opportunity to have the best holiday in the world.”

In the year since Tourism Queensland launched the Best Job in the World more than 8.7 million people had looked at 57 million pages on the www.islandreefjob.com website, Ben had written 65 blogs, uploaded 2500 photos, posted 50 video diaries, tweeted more than 850 times and visited 100 Queensland destinations.