The Australian government is helping recruit a “tourism specialist” to spend six months on Manus Island, an online job description has revealed.
The position - funded by the government - requires the successful applicant to prepare a report on the island's potential as a holiday destination.
The applicant will be paid up to $812 per day, not including living allowances, which works out around $146,000 for the six months.
The role is being advertised by Queensland-based private firm Abt Associates, which the government contracts for aid and health services in various Pacific countries including PNG, Cambodia, Tuvalu and Nauru.
The successful applicant will be paid up to $812 per day. Source: ethicaljobs.com.au
In PNG alone, the company has won a contract worth nearly $140 million to provide “governance services” from 2017-2020.
The tourism specialist will report to a joint PNG-Australian government body and will be listed on DFAT’s aid advisor database.
They will be charged with producing a 12-year tourism plan for the island, known for housing Australian-run immigration centres holding hundreds of asylum seekers and refugees.
The island’s main detention centre was recently closed and the remaining men, roughly 600, were ordered to move to three new sites in the island’s town of Lorengau, also paid for by Australia.
Several asylum seekers have died on the island, prompting condemnation from branches of the United Nations.
The successful candidate needs "more than 10 years’ experience of tourism/business development in a challenging country context," the ad says.
The adviser will report on the island’s existing tourism industry and identify “strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for growth”.
They will also collate a database of all the natural and manmade sites worth visiting on the 2,100 square kilometre island, which is slightly smaller than the city of Adelaide, and advertise them on a new promotional website.
The existing website only lists one item under 'Events'; the Manus Show, which happens “every two years”. The contact page lists the managers of two of the island’s guesthouses.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the idea of invigorating the local tourism industry came from the Manus regional government itself, not Australia.
“The Manus Provincial Administration has identified tourism as a priority, in order to help generate job opportunities and economic growth,” the department told the ABC in a statement.
Applications close at 5pm on Friday 6 April.
