JohnCenaFan28
01-17-2009, 05:51 PM
Tourism officials in Australia have been inundated with applications for "the best job in the world".
The job, on a tropical island, requires no formal qualifications except being willing to swim, snorkel, and sail.
In return the successful applicant will receive a salary of £70,000 for six months. They also get to live in a rent-free villa, with pool.
The post, advertised as "caretaker" on Hamilton Island in Australia's Whitsunday Islands, has already attracted so much interest the tourism department has had to upgrade from one server to 10.
Anthony Hayes, chief executive officer of Tourism Queensland, joked: "Oh boy, what have we done?", after the high volume of traffic saw the site crash briefly.
The new recruit will work for just 12 hours a month. Duties include feeding some of the hundreds of species of fish and collecting the island's mail.
They will also need to produce a blog, a photo diary and video updates to attract tourists to the area.
Over 2,000 video applications have already been received, and today a team of 10 people will start sifting through them. Tens of thousands more are expected before the February 22 deadline.
In May, 10 shortlisted candidates and one wildcard, voted for by visitors to the Tourism Queensland website, will be invited to the islands for a four-day final interview process. The successful candidate will start the new job on 1 July.
-Nova
The job, on a tropical island, requires no formal qualifications except being willing to swim, snorkel, and sail.
In return the successful applicant will receive a salary of £70,000 for six months. They also get to live in a rent-free villa, with pool.
The post, advertised as "caretaker" on Hamilton Island in Australia's Whitsunday Islands, has already attracted so much interest the tourism department has had to upgrade from one server to 10.
Anthony Hayes, chief executive officer of Tourism Queensland, joked: "Oh boy, what have we done?", after the high volume of traffic saw the site crash briefly.
The new recruit will work for just 12 hours a month. Duties include feeding some of the hundreds of species of fish and collecting the island's mail.
They will also need to produce a blog, a photo diary and video updates to attract tourists to the area.
Over 2,000 video applications have already been received, and today a team of 10 people will start sifting through them. Tens of thousands more are expected before the February 22 deadline.
In May, 10 shortlisted candidates and one wildcard, voted for by visitors to the Tourism Queensland website, will be invited to the islands for a four-day final interview process. The successful candidate will start the new job on 1 July.
-Nova