“Where the Bloody Hell Are You” becomes ”Where the Bali hell are you?’

While the Indonesian Government and Garuda seem to be doing very little indeed to address the massive decline of Aussies visiting Bali, a small group of Balinese operators have taken matters firmly into their own hands, launching a contemporary on line campaign to kick-start Bali tourism revival from Australia.

Eight very frustrated small hotels and resorts, forming the fledgling Little Bali Hotel & Resort Company® (LBHRC) joined forces this week to launch the very innovative on line campaign, the centrepiece of which is a tongue in cheek take off of the Tourism Australia “Where The Bloody Hell Are You Campaign, titled, “Where the Bali hell are you” video clip which you can now view online at:

www.wherethebalihellareyou.com

The video clip was shot on location in Bali, with the main thrust to underline that while business may be down from Australia, the rest of the world has in fact started to return in ever-increasing numbers, so where are the Aussies?

Congratulations to Brett Morgan and Mike Parker-Brown, who are behind this excellent initiative to highlight Australians’ noticeable absence on Bali’s beaches, with Australian Federal Minister Fran Bailey reportedly sending the clip to friends and colleagues – The Mole happens to be meeting with Minister Bailey later today at Tourism Australia’s Dreamtime event on the Gold Coast and will ask the question we would all like to ask!  Check out the response in TravelMole on Monday!!

Brett and Mike told The Mole that there had been so much talk of Indonesian government and Australian private sector funding being combined with Australian travel industry support and know how to help rekindle interest in Bali, but nothing seemed to be happening, so they decided to just get on with it!

They added, “The campaign aims to underline what Australian tourists are missing, because nothing seems to be stopping the Europeans and the north Asians who are lapping up all the bargains this destination has to offer and its the same story in the US where Bali is very top of mind having just been voted ‘world’s best island’ by ‘Travel & Leisure’ magazine”,  asking Aussies “Where the Bali Are You?”

They also told the Mole, “Some might say we’ve taken a bit of a lend of a similar, multi-million dollar international tourism marketing campaign that recently did the rounds, but that’s not the case, with our campaign costing millions of rupiah, not millions of dollars, costing under $A3000 not the $180million which the Tourism Australia campaign cost”.

“Of course we know that the two campaigns are not comparable in placement with ours only available online and we have no plans at this early stage to advance it into print and other electronic media”.  “We simply want to reignite interest in the destination, give people a laugh at the same time and anyone who has even been to Bali will know exactly what we’re doing here.”

LBHRC membership to date includes the Waka Group of Hotels, Villa Coco, Bali Garden Hotel, Samsara Hotel & Spa, Puri Etnik Hotel, Bali Ayu Hotel & Villas, Baleka Beach Resort and Su’s Prince Cottages.

Report by The Mole and look out on Monday for Minster Bailey’s response!