Wasted Opportunities

Two to three times per day individually, or 10 to 12 times a day collectively,  +Australia , @WestAustralia and @TourismAus tweet pictures and snippets of information to promote tourism in this fantastic country of ours. What a wonderful initiative. Most of the landscape shots are photo-shopped and colour enhanced, but so was Kim Kardashian's derriere and nobody complains about that.

So you would think that Tourism Western Australia, Tourism Australia and Tourism Victoria, together with their respective State and Territory Parks regulators, would all be very keen to see the wonders of our wilderness thrust into the living room of millions of Americans as the backdrop of a great Australian wildlife documentary. Not so.

There are ridiculous fees associated with filming in public places for commercial purposes and these fees stymy any desire that budget produces may have had to shoot them. Victoria is particularly bad. It was going to cost a small L.A. based production company between $800 and $2000 per day to film here at Wilsons Promontory.

Small production companies, like Karga7 who are currently on their way to Australia to film our magnificent tiger snakes, simply cannot afford to film 'on location' in National Parks, wildlife sanctuaries or anywhere that epitomises the natural beauty of Australia. As a consequence, the Global consumer that has a penchant for touring the wild destinations they see on screen will never know that such a place exists in real life. More's the pity for we here in Australia that miss out on the tourist dollars.

I am not that ignorant that I don't understand that the upkeep of National Parks and reserves costs a lot of money, but surely this approach to capitalising on commercial filming is a bit short-sighted? You can imagine my surprise, then, when I came across this article about a small Western Australian local council that had decided to waive all fees and charges for the making of films and documentaries in their shire. What a fantastic initiative! And, as a consequence, several productions of merit are underway in that very shire.