Western Australia counter-attacks following the use of a Perth beach in a Spanish tourism ad

Western Australia has launched an online campaign to reclaim its beautiful beaches after tourism officials in Costa Brava used an image of Perth’s City Beach in an advert for the north-eastern Spanish coastline.

The photograph of a man and a boy standing on a white beach, staring out into a clear blue sea was used by Costa Brava tourism officials to mark the centenary of the Spanish coastline at a recent food fair in the nearby city of Girona. However, it was taken 10,000 miles away on City Beach, often dubbed Perth’s best beach thanks to the beautiful expanses of white sand and good surfing.

Christie Lord, marketing manager for Tourism Western Australia commented: “Those going to Costa Brava in search of the picturesque beach shown in their ads will be sorely disappointed. The clean white sand and endless blue skies in the image are only to be found in Perth, where you can actually have a whole stretch of beach to yourself rather than fighting for a patch of sand. The fact they dulled the colour of the sand to try pass it off as Spanish says it all.”

The creative that was developed in conjunction with Marketforce and NetX and is being distributed to their UK database of over 70,000 consumers as well as to media and trade.