(EMAILWIRE.COM, March 29, 2009 ) Auckland, New Zealand - Social networking and blogging has become the 21st Century way of expressing ourselves and anyone who’s worth their salt is blogging, tweeting or facebooking about something – but now, a new blog on an online expat guide has caused major controversy by rubbishing New Zealand…
Would you want to visit a ‘horrible, soulless’ place inhabited by hobbits? Exactly. And that’s the problem the NZ tourist board have with a new blog written by an Australian duo on their website.
The online expat guide was created by the Australians, a professional couple couple in their late twenties who recently moved to New Zealand.
They show no mercy on their new home, which is a place millions of people long to emigrate to, describing Auckland as a ‘horrible, soulless’ place where they couldn’t even buy a copy of The Age (an Australian newspaper).
They also criticise New Zealand’s other major cities, its beer and its ‘lack of worldliness or culture.’ Kiwis are described as ‘hobbits’ with no dress sense.
Kiwis are fiercely proud of their beautiful country and all of these comments have upset and baffled them. Tourism Chief Executive, Graeme Osborne, said, “Maybe they're just envious that Auckland recently rated ahead of every Australian city as a tourist destination.
“They should get in touch with me personally and I guarantee I’ll change their impression,” he added.
The couple also trashed stunning Rotorua, a popular tourist destination famed for it sulfuric activity, saying it ‘absolutely stinks.’
“How do people tell when their eggs have gone off?” screams the blog.
Ruth Crampton from Destination Rotorua, said it was ‘the smell that makes us special.’
Once it was discovered that the bloggers were in fact from Tasmania, which has traditionally been the butt of all Aussie jokes (unfairly so, I might add – it’s a beautiful place with loads on offer) they were getting a taste of their own medicine.
Professor Philippa Mein Smith of the NZ Australia Connections Research Centre said, “Isn’t Tasmania the butt of all the jokes over there?
“They’re just attacking us because they themselves are at the bottom of the pecking order back home.”
Whilst it makes an amusing story, the blog has done nothing to help unite Australia and New Zealand, and, instead of the famous Aussie tourism campaign asking ‘where the bloody hell are ya?’ this blog begs the question to the couple ‘why the bloody hell are you still here then?’
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