Local Tourist Promotion

Every year in early March, Attractions Victoria rolls out its "Be A Tourist in Your Own Home Town" promotion. It used to be an incredible value and when I was a kid we went many times. Back in the 70's the promotion meant free admission to many attractions plus a double decker bus tour, and a small drink and fries at McDonalds. The last time I bought tickets was 2001, and I hauled my pregnant self around some of the attractions which were now generally 2-for-1 admissions or $2 to $5 off one admission. No bus tours, no Tally-Ho ride (just a "raincheck"), no free food. Honestly, the value is debatable now.

So anyway, I wanted to find out when it was running. Do you think it was on the Tourism Victoria website? No... yet they sell the tickets ($9 this year). I ended up phoning them and they proclaimed that it will be running March 9-13 2005 and tickets are now on sale. When I asked why it wasn't on their website, they said because it was a local promotion only and was advertized locally (print and radio) instead of online. Fair enough, I said, but could they not have buried a press release or just listed it, without any further info, on their calendar of events? I mean, if I were coming to visit from say, Texas, and on arrival found that all the attractions were lined up out the door, I'd be a little peeved. Having it listed might allow people the option of avoiding that weekend. Hmm. So after venting, the perky person on the other end of the phone told me that they only sell the tickets, they don't organize the event. It's handled by Attractions Victoria (as noted above).

So I went in search of their site. They also fail to mention the promotion. Worse, there is NO contact information for the association on their own site -- not even a link to the web designer in case of typos. Instead the contact us link leads to a list of member attractions and local tourist info pages. This pissed me off. It's bad web design karma. So I did a WHOIS search and found that it is registered care/of one of the memeber attractions, was locally hosted, and had an identifiable technical contact. [edit: Oops, the member attraction may have failed to renew its own domain and now it points to a coming soon/generic search page.]

If I still feel peeved later, I may contact one or more of the people listed in the WHOIS, but I think I already feel better having ranted here. Thanks for listening!