‘Tourists hate themselves’ – which is why Tasmania is telling them to stay away

Tourism Tasmania’s new campaign is less anti-tourist, more anti-overcrowding, says marketing expert Prof David Waller. Photograph: Tourism Tasmania View image in fullscreen Tourism Tasmania’s new campaign is less anti-tourist, more anti-overcrowding, says marketing expert Prof David Waller. Photograph: Tourism Tasmania ‘Tourists hate themselves’ – which is why Tasmania is telling them to stay away Island state declares it ‘is not really for tourists’ – but is the marketing strategy just a cheeky piece of reverse psychology?

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Its new campaign declares Tasmania is “not really for tourists”, enlisting former SBS newsreader Lee Lin Chin to help sell the tongue-in-cheek campaign, based on the idea that Australians prefer identifying as a “traveller” rather than a “tourist”.

Its centrepiece is a short video of a man being pointed to the back of an endless queue for a “world famous” pastry. He eventually abandons the line to find solitude in the Tasmanian outdoors.

Chin, who lives mostly offline without a mobile phone, also fronts videos exploring the state’s walking trails on her visit.

View image in fullscreen ‘Instead of the cold north, we are talking about the cold south … it’s a quiet place, time slows down,’ says Prof Can-Seng Ooi. Photograph: Tourism Tasmania Tourism Tasmania’s CEO, Sarah Kingston Clark, said the campaign was deliberately wry rather than anti-visitor, to reflect the “tensions” of modern travel.

“Studies have shown that tourists hate themselves,” he said. “They want to avoid each other.”

“It taps into the type of tourist people want to be,” Ooi said. He added that people prefer to view themselves as “travellers” because of the negative connotation of “tourist”.

“The message is very Scandinavian, even the imagery: the sauna, the vinyl records, the books and so on,” Ooi said. “Instead of the cold north, we are talking about the cold south … it’s a quiet place, time slows down.”

Char-lee McLennan, an associate professor from QUT’s school of management, said the campaign used “an element of reverse psychology” that could benefit regional economies by steering visitors beyond established hotspots.

Prof David Waller, a marketing expert at the University of Technology Sydney, said Tasmania’s “Come down for air” theme was less “anti-tourist” and “more anti-overcrowded, line-joining, tourist destinations”.

“Lee Lin Chin is adding humour to the message,” he said. “Lee Lin Chin is an icon – intelligent, avant garde and [she has a] dry sense of humour.”

But McLennan said the campaign’s success depends on whether the real experience of visiting Tasmania lives up to its promise as well as delivering meaningful economic benefits to regional communities.