By ERWIN CHLANDA
The announcement that Tiger flights to Alice Springs will cease again came out of the blue, and follows Tourism NT spending about $700,000 in the past 12 months promoting holidays in Central Australia with Tigerair.
The NT Government’s Tourism NT says: “Tigerair gave [us] no indication of this happening before Friday afternoon.
“Tourism NT is in regular contact with all its airline partners on marketing campaigns and was given no inkling that anything was amiss regarding Tigerair services to Alice.”
Apart form the $700,000 campaign Tigerair “would have also benefitted from other Tourism NT activity. There was also significant digital activity, PR and social media with Tigerair, as we do with other airlines,” says Tourism NT.
It says it’s too early to know how many hotel and tour bookings will be lost as a result of the flights being canceled: “Tigerair chose July 22 as the date to withdraw its services in order to give passengers adequate lead time to make other arrangements.
“Tourism NT will be able to monitor any impact resulting from [Tiger's] withdrawal via its regular industry sentiment polling.”
Tourism Central Australia did not respond to a request for comment.