Just what regional Australia needs. Karl Stefanovic and the Logies on tour. Credit:Scott Barbour Apparently Destination NSW has lodged an expression of interest to take the TV Week Logies awards out of their spiritual home at The Crown in Melbourne and place them in Tamworth. Then Dubbo. Then Albury. That's right folks, Destination NSW and their minister Adam Marshall want to take the Logies on a regional tour. Apparently they have done their homework and it will pump valuable tourist dollars into regional economies. Well, I give their homework a D-, because they have overlooked some fairly important facts in their research - namely, tourists do not go to the Logies.

"Let's not inflict the Logies on the poor citizens of regional Australia." Credit:Nine If you have ever had the time and inclination to sit and watch Australia's night of nights and carefully scanned the crowd shots, there aren't any tourists there. Nope, just TV stars on the front tables, TV executives on the back tables. The most touristy of the guests are the handful of journalists who haven't been relegated to the dungeon known as the media room and have been allowed in the ballroom. Of course, if the awards were to be held in Tamworth or Wagga Wagga or Canberra, of all places, most of the people there would become "tourists" by virtue of the fact they don't live in those cities.

Do they intend to give the Silver Logie for most popular actress from inside the rhino enclosure at Western Plains Zoo? But will a couple of actors from Home and Away spending the night at Tamworth's finest hotel/motel really save regional economies? Do they intend to give the silver Logie for most popular actress from inside the rhino enclosure at Western Plains Zoo, in the hope the television audience will be so excited by seeing a rhino they will immediately book their next family trip to Dubbo? Are they going to open the doors of the event to the public and sell tickets to those who want to spend the night in Albury rubbing shoulders with Samantha Armytage? Have they forgotten that media companies have no travel budgets any more? They'd be lucky to get 10 journos in a Greyhound bus. And it's pretty hard to imagine Angela Bishop staying in a Comfort Inn motel with a "Sanitised for your protection" sash over the toilet seat.

Exactly how will this help, beyond getting New South Wales' tourism minister and member for the regional electorate of the Northern Tablelands a moment in the sun where he can show he cares about regional communities? Which is commendable. Regional communities are awesome tourism destinations, there is genuinely nothing better than getting out into the country and exploring the unique offerings of the country. And among those offerings is not the Logies. I doubt most people head to regional Australia to see wealthy celebrities given awards and pats on the back. I doubt most people in regional communities would have much interest in the juggernaut that is the Logies (broadcast trucks, red carpets, hundreds of cameras, hundreds of photographers, millions of sequins…) stomping around their tranquil towns for one night of full hotels and little advantage beyond that.

If Mr Marshall wants to boost regional tourism, he should come up with ideas that are going to have a lasting impact, not a self-serving publicity ploy. The Logies aren't about tourism (as the Victorian government is slowly learning), they aren't a political toy that ministers and departments can use to boost their profile. They are just a kind of cringey awards ceremony, invented by a TV guide, bolstered by a TV network that everyone loves to hate. Let's not inflict them on the poor citizens of regional Australia.