Exposing the territory to China

Exposing the territory to China

While heading down a freeway in southern China, Strike, accompanied by an entourage of four other cars full of interpreters, chaperones and various government officials, pulled over and the officials jumped out, making mobile phone calls. Strike discovered that a bureaucratic error had forced them to abandon their visit to the city of Liuzhou. An instant decision was made to divert the roadshow to the city of Nanning. “A short time later we pull up at the Grand Palace Hotel in Nanning and walk straight into a banquet for 50 people with the governor sitting there,” he recalls. “Within an hour they’d changed cities, hotels, banquets and governors. In Australia they’d say, ‘give us three weeks notice'.”

Steve Strike has developed a relationship with the Chinese that other Australian businesspeople can only envy. He has made repeated visits as a guest of the government, invited to exhibit his stunning collection of Northern Territory photography. But these are not exhibitions seen only by select segment of the population. The exhibition forms the centerpiece of a wide variety of festivals across China, exposing the Territory landscape to tens of thousands of people, as well as the country’s leading photographers.

Strike’s role as the Territory’s unofficial ambassador to China began in 2007 when CCTV, the Chinese television giant, sent a large group of filmmakers and photographers to the Territory to produce a series of documentaries called Journey to the Mystery Land. Strike, an Alice Springs based photographer whose work has featured internationally in the world’s most prestigious magazines, was asked to suggest locations and accompany the project group. His role was later expanded and he acted as a narrator for the desert segments. The series was screened and viewed by over 200 million people.

Strike was then invited to visit and exhibit in China by National Geographic photographer Zheng Wang, who doubles as the director of grand events for the China Photographers Association (CPA). Strike was asked to visit again late last year, with his show of 64 images to be exhibited in cities across China for an entire year. Opening in Chengde, the 400-year-old emperor’s resort city near Beijing, the exhibition was the headline act at the China Second International Photographic Festival being held there.

The opening ceremony was attended by over 10 000 people, 500 of them school kids in uniform, crews from five television stations and a large military contingent. Dancers performed in local traditional costumes, and a throng of media recorded Strike’s every move. The overwhelmed visitor handed out booklets printed by Tourism NT in Chinese showcasing the Territory, featuring many of Steve’s images.

But unlike in Australia, printed matter is a rare commodity in China, and they actively seek it. “I give them away to market the Territory, but the Chinese think this is my book,” says Strike. “So when I give them out they turn it over and ask for my autograph. ‘Mr Steve, sign here’. In the end, the security guys had to clear away the crowd so I could get out of the building.”

In southern China Strike was invited to the 100 Visiting Famous Artist Festival, where overseas musicians, sculptors, photographers, composers and painters were hosted by the Chinese Government. Strike gave live audio visual presentations of his work to audiences of photographers that ran into the thousands. The most regularly asked question of Strike was why his photographs were so clear. They are accustomed to shooting in a country where air pollution challenges the best photographers. “They just love the purity of our air when they see the images. They can’t believe we have no air pollution,” he observes. “They also love wild places, and they’re fascinated with the Territory because of our red landscape. Red is a symbol of good luck in China.”

Now the relationship between the Territory photographer and the Chinese is about to take a new step. The Chinese Government, through its photographic group the CPA, has initiated a series of Territory tours personally escorted by Strike as celebrity guide, in a program geared to get them top photographic results. “It’s about seeing the Territory at its best,” he explains. “We won’t go to Kings Canyon at 7 o’clock in the morning like all the tourists do because it’s all in shadow. We’ll be going there at 4 o’clock in the afternoon when the light is just magnificent, streaming into the canyon, lighting it all up. Then those images go back to China and are used as marketing tools to promote the place. In fact, every person I bring out from China will go back as a visual marketer for the Territory because they’ll exhibit all their images and, hopefully, that will inspire others to make the trip.”

The China exhibition can be seen online at http://www.photoz.com.au/galleries.html

Outback ballooning over China

John Wallington knows a ballooning opportunity when he sees it. While in China, the intrepid pilot saw the massive number of tourists and decided his company, Outback Ballooning, should be getting them up in hot air balloons. So he had a look at the Great Wall as a prospective site, and decided it was impractical because of weather and terrain considerations. Then he saw a video of a domestic ballooning operation flying over the surreal landscape of Yangshuo in the heavily touristed Guilin region. It had the three things necessary for a successful operation. “You need a spectacular location to lure the public, you need good weather, and you need a landable terrain,” he explains. “If you have spectacular mountains, but can’t find anywhere to land, it’s no good. The combination of factors just came together in Yangshuo.”

That was the start of Outback Ballooning’s venture into southern China. Today they take mostly international tourists up over the picturesque valley where 150m to 300m tall limestone karsts, blanketed in forest, rise from the flatland near the meandering Li River. The karsts are within 100m of each other, separated by farms, orchards and gardens. Tiny old villages are scattered between the karsts and, though literally millions of visitors spill through each year, the area retains its cultural charm. According to an ancient Chinese saying, “Guilin scenery is the best under heaven.”

The town of Yangshuo borders the Li River on one side, and is situated on a small plain between a number of karst peaks. It’s a town devoted to servicing the massive regional tourism industry complete with foreign-oriented businesses, such as hostels, hotels, rock climbing companies, restaurants and entertainment venues.

Wallington and his Outback Ballooning partner, John Sanby, realised the balloons in their longtime Alice Springs operation could do well in Yangshuo. They also believed that, because of the bewildering Chinese bureaucracy, the only sensible approach to setting up there would be to form a joint venture with Chinese balloonists who were already flying around Guilin, but not flying international clients.

Critical factors like lack of insurance stopped them flying internationals. While they are extremely capable balloon pilots, they didn’t have the documented procedures that top-of-the-market tour companies were looking for. They were flying backpackers as opposed to tour groups. Wallington introduced established systems, operations manuals, and used their international contacts to get a Lloyds-based insurance policy. China Hot Air Ballooning was born.

Outback Ballooning professionalised the existing operation, introducing the new company to international tourism. “It’s very exciting because it’s very difficult to achieve what we have achieved in China,” explains Wallington. “It has required the unique quality of this western company that is more experienced in marketing than any other aspect. My partner [John Sanby] is a marketing specialist, so we bring marketing and the documenting of standards that has enabled us to put this together in China.” Outback Ballooning has been a tourism mainstay in Alice Springs for 23 years.

As chief flying instructor to the new company, Wallington brings his legend status to the operation. The Canberraborn balloon pilot entered the Australian Championships in 1988 and won, and won again in 1992. That led him to pilot Dick Smith’s first balloon flight across Australia, before reuniting with the adventurous millionaire for the first balloon flight across the Tasman from New Zealand to Australia, taking 53 hours.

“It’s very exciting because it’s very difficult to achieve what we have achieved in China.”

Last year, taking off from Uluru in one of Outback Ballooning’s fi nest, he set a new Australian altitude record, going up to 11 500m (38 000ft) before dropping a parachutist chasing a new world parachute record. “We broke the previous record by 5000ft, so there was a pretty significant sense of achievement,” recalls Wallington. “It was not a safe place to be up there. It was minus 56 degrees and we were going 250 km an hour in the jetstream. But it was a pretty exciting place to be.”

China is now the place of opportunity for the Australian balloonists. The new joint venture has 20 employees, all Chinese pilots, and is looking to build an office space that will not only serve as the company’s headquarters, but will also house its employees. “It’s good in China because undoubtedly there will be an economic downturn, but the base numbers are so enormous that I don’t think it’ll affect us,” notes Wallington optimistically. “We’re not in any position to look at a downturn in business because we just got started - so we can only go up from here!”

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