Free flight to Australia? Wow and we thought last month's Spain fares were low!
The world economy is suffering and because of that tourism is down…way down. Some countries are willing to go to extreme lengths to get their local economy booming again. How extreme you ask? Well take for example our friends down under Australia. The Aussie government is possibly going to work with Virgin Airlines to offer foreign passengers free flights in order to get them to visit the land of koalas and kangaroos.
One catch, but honestly not a bad one, is that you would have to spend a certain amount of cash on local hotels, restaurants, attractions and shops. The Mayday project, which is the brainchild of Independent Tourism Holdings innovation director Glenn Millen, could bring many new faces to the land down under. I for one would definitely be practicing my boomerang skills if I could fly for free to Australia.
Virgin Blue’s chief executive, Brett Godfrey thinks the idea is simply brilliant. He feels it could be this generation’s “ten pound POM”, which were special fares offered to British citizens after World War II in an attempt to lure some of them to Australia and become permanent residents. Mr. Godfrey, who now has Virgin’s international carrier V Australia to offer, is hoping that the Australian Federal Government will get the ball rolling as soon as possible. The way in which it would work is simple, the Government would buy up airline tickets at a deeply discounted price and then would turn around and offer them to the general public for $0.
Other Aussie airlines like Qantas are against the idea and believe that there are better ways to attract travelers back to Australia without going to such drastic measures.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
