Bikini babes, wet T-shirt competitions to boost tourism in Queensland

Melbourne, Mar 13 (ANI): Tropical Tourism North Queensland has kicked off a new raunchy campaign with bikini babes and wet T-shirt competitions to boost their backpackers market.

According to The Courier Mail, once dumped in favour of politically correct images of the reef and rainforest, tourism leaders are back promoting sex and sun to attract tourists.

A raunchy new website "Gotta Love the Wet Season" shows the weekly wet T-shirt competitions of the Cairns party scene.

One picture shows a blonde woman with exposed midriff and wet T-shirt dancing away as she's sprayed with water at one popular inner-city venue.

However, the steamy new image has sparked uproar, and has divided the community.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland chairman Stephen Olle said it was "crunch time" for the industry.

According to him, a lot of tourism-related businesses were in "survival mode", laying off staff, waiting for the market to pick up again in the traditional tourist season of May to September.

"Sex and raunchiness is part of the backpacker market but it is certainly not all of it," News.com.au quoted Olle as saying.

"They do the trips to the reef, the tours, the dive courses, and they go out and make a night of it," he added.

However, the Family First candidate for Cairns, Janice Skipp condemned the flesh-for-fantasy approach of the ad campaign.

"I know sex sells," she said.

"But to promote sex and wet T-shirts is not a good image.

"Some would like to see Cairns as party town, but families come here, too.I don't think backpackers are the future of Cairns. I think we should aim at the higher end of town," she added. (ANI)