26 October 2011

Katy gushes over royal visit

| johnboy
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Chief Minister Katy Gallagher has been swept of her feet by her brush with royalty:

The visit to Canberra by Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh has generated incredible media exposure around the world, valued conservatively at well over $35 million.

As the Canberra leg of the Royal visit draws to a close, ACT Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher said the overwhelmingly positive media coverage had reached all corners of the globe, with national and international media outlets covering key highlights of the stay in Australia’s national capital.

“This Royal visit has presented Canberra with an incredible opportunity to showcase our wonderful city to Australia and the world, attracting unparalleled media interest in our beautiful city,” Ms Gallagher said.

“The images of the Royal Couple on Lake Burley Griffin and at Floriade in our beautiful spring sunshine last week were simply priceless in terms of promoting Canberra’s image to a global audience.

“The breadth of the media coverage has been quite remarkable, with more than 20,000 news stories appearing in print, broadcast and online media world-wide – and that number is expected to rise considerably as further analysis is completed.

“In addition to the extensive, daily national coverage across Australia, the visit to Canberra has featured prominently in many overseas markets including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Africa, the Middle East and the United States.”

Ms Gallagher said last week’s private tour of Floriade, including the Royal Couple’s spectacular arrival on the Admiral’s Barge, was given prominent coverage in all media. Floriade was trending globally on Twitter immediately after the Queen’s visit last Thursday.

Other highlights included Her Majesty’s airport arrival in Canberra, formal events at Government House, Parliament House and the Royal Military College, Duntroon, the visit to St. John’s Church on Sunday and yesterday’s final engagement at the Australian War Memorial.

“The visit was covered by all spectrums of the media, from the high profile BBC, CNN, The Guardian and Daily Telegraph (UK), The New York Times and Washington Post to lesser known news outlets such as the Himalayan Times, Brunei Times, Kenya Star and Denver Times,” Ms Gallagher said.

“While it is too early to quantify the exact value of the media exposure generated by the Royal Visit, I expect it will be even higher and it should benefit the local tourism industry for some time to come.

If only Jon Stanhope had a grave in which to turn.

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English friend of mine (back in UK), after seeing report of Queen’s visit to Floriade, asked me if this was a joke, as flowers looked dead and having spent there only 25 minutes (including talking with gardeners and volunteers) you’d question the point of taking her out there.Embarrassing.
On another hand, Himalayan Times’ coverage of Royal visit is a great thing-this will generate large public interest and bring millions to ACT economy. 🙂 Well done!!

schmeah said :

dog and pony show

Indeed.

schmeah said :

I’m actually more intererested in knowing how much this dog and pony show cost and whether the police were sufficiently resourced to respond to local crime otherwise endured by us serfs while the majority were out protecting this welfare sponge.

I asked the same question about cost a few days ago, and was advised to pull my head in. Apparently we should just feel blessed to be in the presence of her magnificence, and not worry about the coin.

Keijidosha said :

I only recall seeing two prominent articles about the Queen’s visit. One regarding our PM’s failure to curtsey, and the other lauding a little girl at Floriade who did manage the appropriate bend of the knees.

Seriously? You must not have switched on a television, visited a website or read a newspaper in the last few days.

Every single visit and place she went to was covered live by all networks, sky and ABC 24hrs, it was the lead story on the evening news every night, taking up about 10 minutes of their half hour coverage and every Australian and many international news website had the days activities as their top banner headline. Not to mention about 5 pages of coverage in the “Special Royal Commemorative Souvenir” newspapers every day.

Its all thanks to you Katy! Thanks getting the Queen to come here!

I’m actually more intererested in knowing how much this dog and pony show cost and whether the police were sufficiently resourced to respond to local crime otherwise endured by us serfs while the majority were out protecting this welfare sponge.

Could they please give a link to the CNN articles? I just did a quick check on the CNN website (a place I do actually read from time to time) and I couldn’t see anything…

While numbers valuing press coverage are utterly spurious, favourable mentions go a long way in assisting other marketing activities.

“The breadth of the media coverage has been quite remarkable, with more than 20,000 news stories appearing in print, broadcast and online media world-wide – and that number is expected to rise considerably as further analysis is completed.”

I only recall seeing two prominent articles about the Queen’s visit. One regarding our PM’s failure to curtsey, and the other lauding a little girl at Floriade who did manage the appropriate bend of the knees.

$35 million worth of media exposure for Canberra? Perhaps. Will it generate a discernable increase in tourism? Doubtful.

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