Australia tourism income soars, provocative ad helps

Tourists stand in front of the Sydney Opera House June 21, 2007.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - So where the "bloody hell" have all the tourists gone? Australia.

The controversial and recently axed "Where The Bloody Hell Are You?" tourism campaign appears to have paid off with Australia posting its strongest tourist spending in close to a decade.

Holidaymakers injected A$85 billion ($80 billion) into the A$1 trillion economy in 2006-2007, with overseas visitors accounting for $22 billion of that, up 9.8 percent, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.

The bureau's figures include total consumption, such as meals, drinks and attractions.

"While today's figures are a shining light for the sector, we can't afford to rest on our laurels," Tourism and Transport Forum (TTF) managing director Christopher Brown told local media.

The result was the strongest since 1999 and came in the middle of the A$180 million "Where The Bloody Hell Are You?" campaign, in which a bikini-clad model asks why overseas visitors haven't come to Australia yet.

The two-year campaign, created by advertising agency M&C Saatchi, was banned in Britain and Canada, and was dropped by the Australian government in February.

The figures showed tourism accounted for 3.7 percent of Australia's economy and employed 482,800 people. But more recent tourism data has showed signs of weakness from key markets including Japan and Britain.

Overseas arrivals were down 1.2 per cent in February and 0.7 per cent in January.

Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson has flagged a new international campaign presenting Australia for the next three years as a "mature, inviting country".

The sales pitch also hopes to capitalize on the anticipated success of the new historical film epic "Australia", starring Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by David Fogarty)