'Do the Whitsundays' back on track

 Three months ago 50 independent tourism operators from the Whitsunday region joined forces to launch a competition inviting participants to “Do the Whitsundays”, but after just three weeks of operation problems in cyberspace forced the competition to close.

 Co-organiser James Davison explained there were issues with the competition’s facebook page through which entries were made.

 “We just couldn’t be guaranteed of the voting system’s integrity. On the surface it looked like it was going very well but ultimately we couldn’t be sure everyone was getting a fair chance,” Mr Davison said.

 Within twelve hours of making the announcement to close, James was contacted by CEO and founder of Australia’s leading online wine and food travel guide VisitVineyards.com. Robyn Lewis had seen the competition on facebook and twitter and was keenly following its progress.

 “I actually entered. I thought, “This looks great”. And then the wheels fell off,” she said.

As a former Queensland resident and fundraiser for the Premier’s disaster relief appeal, Robyn said she felt a need to help.

 “Tourism is down significantly in the region and as a former North Queenslander I thought this (competition) shouldn’t be allowed to die, especially when we’ve got the means to help out,” Ms Lewis said.

 “Visit Vineyards has 36,000 subscribers nationally and we run promotions of this nature every month. They’d got all the prizes together and it’s a really good promotion. We’re prepared to put a lot of effort into making it work,” she said.

 One of the 28 original contributors to stick with the competition is Captain Pete of Aviation Adventures.

 “It’s the only thing I’ve seen in the last couple of years that’s promoting the Whitsundays with that many local businesses involved,” he said.

 Competition co-founder Phil Batty said it was a “different” end result, but “a good one”.

 “The fact that it hasn’t been wasted is terrific and the facebook site is still promoting the Whitsundays, which is what it was all about in the first place,” Mr Batty said.

 Do the Whitsundays will officially relaunch on September 1. It will run for three months, with the final draw on December 1.

 To enter, people will now go to www.VisitVineyards.com/win for the chance to win one of two main prizes, both of almost equivalent value.