Morning Links: Best Job in the World Finalists, ‘Narco-Tours’ and More
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 03.04.09 | 8:18 AM ET
- The 50-person short list for Tourism Queensland’s “best job in the world” includes a man who staged a musical on an Ontario street and Geek Brief’s Cali Lewis.
- The Tsunami Museum commemorating the victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami is open in Indonesia.
- China plans to open its earthquake ruins to tourists.
- Interesting essay by Alexei Tsvetkov on leaving Prague: “In the end some people here will probably miss me, but not many, not too much, and not for long.” (via The Rumpus)
- Ryan Adams: Travel writer? BlackBook has his take on Hollywood. Here are his musical takes on New York and Jacksonville.
- “Narco-tours” are on the rise in Mexico.
- Independent Traveler lists 10 reasons you should travel now.
- Esquire lists the 59 best breakfast places in America.
- Are you an, uh, anal traveler? (via BootsnAll Today)
- How great is this: John Wray will be giving a reading from his new book Lowboy while traveling on a Brooklyn-bound L train next week. Details in this video.
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Sophia Dembling 03.04.09 | 11:15 AM ET
So what shall we think about the fact that Esquire magazine inserted fat belly advertisements into their slide show about best breakfasts? I’m suffering a little cognitive dissonance here…
Michael Yessis 03.04.09 | 4:37 PM ET
The ad server wasn’t working when I looked, so I didn’t suffer. But I did get hungry.
Adrian Diaconescu 03.04.09 | 5:46 PM ET
The Canadian had my vote. His performance was great!
tim 03.05.09 | 8:05 AM ET
Kiran should win - he is funny, very talented, energetic, enthusiastic, experienced, loves nature and will be a great ambassador for his native country Kenya and the Great Barrier Reef…vote, vote and vote again for Kiran
winston 03.07.09 | 5:39 AM ET
Rescues Kim!
I thought that Kim is a specialty, and care manner person. I saw has many people to the point of view is subject to duty this work, but I thought that she is not such person. Perhaps some people is good at performing, movie also very fancy. But is this work’s core not that environmental protection ’ care ’ continues forever to develop like three goals? Now the great barrier reef ecology moves toward feebly day after day , we need to have a person who has sincerity to treasure it the to manage it, but is not throws the ticket to the human who is good at performing , like this we and the later generation descendants can forever appreciate guarantee the reef beautiful scene, also can avoid letting it move toward the historical noun the regret, DO you want yours and your descendants can appreciate guarantees the reef greatly? That throws the ticket to Kim! In all participants, only then she can accomplish, please throw a your sacred ticket to her! Thanks!
Jacques D 03.09.09 | 6:41 PM ET
Best Hoax of 2009
Most of the English speaking world has heard about the “Island reef Job” or “The Best Job in the World” contest run by Tourism Queensland in Australia. The promotion has been heralded as one of the greatest marketing phenomenon ever and initially appeared so.
Well it is more than a well crafted promotion. It is a HOAX.
The winner was already determined before the contest even opened. David Whitehill and his agency Creative Representation are in league with Tourism Queensland and Cummins Nitro in designing this hoax. It was loosely based on the current crop of reality shows currently on TV. Sort of a survivor / big brother blend except the winner was already decided before Christmas in 2008!
Unfortunately for them the contest side of the promotion grew out of control when the world media ran with the initial story. Thousands of media outlets and tens of thousands unsuspecting applicants inundated the poorly designed TQ operation. Some folks have spent significant resources providing video (estimate $30 – 20 million in total) and media outlets have to this date (March 4, 2009) provided ($80 million) in free publicity! “For a $US1.8 million ($NZ3.6 million) campaign we have received nearly $US80 million in publicity,” said Ms Boyle (State of Queensland Minister of Tourism).
The applicants who put their heart and soul into this hoax are very angry about this revelation. The millions of viewers are disappointed. The media outlets have expressed disbelief as to their gullibility.
After viewing the top50 and looking up David Hill’s cult status in Queensland the hoax becomes obvious. David is miles ahead of the selected top50 applications. That and the obvious bias for less than 30 years of age crowd were also given away to the selection process plan. A few of the top50 videos were over the 60 second rule that caused some applicants so much grief. One top50 video from China didn’t even have any spoken English. The real big clue to the hoax was that the final winner is ultimately to be decided by Tourism Queensland. This will allow for David Hill to be given the work and use it as a launching pad for his acting career.
The Queensland people will accept this much better now that a local boy is keeping the cash in the area.
“There were rumours of a hoax from the beginning.” Michael Branagh, boss of Cummins Nitro’s Brisbane office said he was delighted with the success of the project which had generated huge amounts of worldwide publicity. He said the video was put on the site to “seed” it and AAP had only itself to blame for being fooled. He said: “Bad luck to them. They should have known better.”