Will shark movie, The Reef, help or hinder Australia's tourist trade?

Arguing that it will harm a tourist trade that is already experiencing an unwelcome slump is Col McKenzie, the head of the Association of Marine Park Operators. “We know from the industry, any kind of shark attack, any kind that they air in the Jaws movies and things like that, there’s a drop off in inquiries within the marine tourism industry,” he says. While others, such as Rob Giason, the CEO of Tourism Tropical North Queensland believes that by featuring great white sharks, which do not inhabit the Reef, this “distorts” peoples’ ideas of the holiday hotspot.

Passionately defending the movie is its line producer, Tiare Tomaszewski, who argues that the production might be filming in Queensland, but the film isn’t set there, an intentional decision reached to help boost the film’s chances abroad. “We’re a small Australian genre film and we hope that we have a lot of international sales and if we specify too much where we are [set], people won’t respond to it that well,” she says.

As for the impact on tourism levels, some parties, such as Tourism Minister, Peter Lawlor suggests that horror movies don’t discourage people from visiting onscreen destinations, as “the vast majority of people are able to discern fact from fiction.” While going on to argue that when they do have an impact, they actually encourage numbers to go up, not down.

“Movies such as this can in fact help raise the profile of a destination and add to Australia’s image as an adventure destination,” he says, a sentiment echoed by the film’s producer, Michael Robinson. “I know that when the crocodile films were made in the Northern Territory it actually increased tourism [there].” Likewise, Dr Mark Ryan, lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology has weighed in on the debate, referring to past Australian horrors like Wolf Creek, which he says “created tourism”.

Sounds like this one might rumble on and on and we’ll just have to wait until The Reef opens next year to find out who’s brave enough to go back in the water.

[via Cairns]