How Roger Federer changed Western Australian Tourism

• Tennis News
• Roger Federer

Roger Federer has been a great star at the Hopman Cup in Perth. The Swiss player played the 2017-18 editions, winning the 2018 title with Belinda Bencic. Federer was also involved in off-court activities as he visited several locales in the Western Australian city.

Before the event started, the 20-time Grand Slam winner visited Rottnest Island. Immediately thereafter, On Google, there were 400% more searches about Rottnest Island, and Federer, who got a huge appearance fee from the government, shared a selfie with a quokka, typical animal of the region, on his social media channels.

'We knew that if we got him out to Rottnest and we got him with a quokka and that vision of him getting the selfie as well as the actual selfie itself would go bananas on social media, it did,' Tourism Minister Paul Papalia said. 'International tourists make up 13% of the island's visitors but that number is on the rise.

And they're flocking to the spot where Federer took his selfie.' Michelle Reynolds, the Executive Director of Rottnest Island Authority, also mentioned, 'Even in January, a short time after his visit we had the highest numbers since we've been recording visitation to the island,' Reynolds said. 'He got a really great picture with them which is what I've been seeing so I wanted to duplicate it when I came.' ALSO READ: Roger Federer's fitness trainer fuels speculation about his clay season