A photo of a man's bulging pants has been pulled from the latest campaign of Australia's Gold Coast tourism board because it didn't want its bid to attract more gay travelers 'reduced to a crotch shot'.

Gold Coast Tourism (GCT) were using the close-up of a man in tight white swim shorts, with the tagline ‘Check out our impressive packages’, to promote the area as a destination for the LGBT community.

However, it was dropped after attracting unwanted negative news coverage.
GCT director of communications and marketing services, Ben Pole, told the Mumbrella website, that the image ‘did not represent the tone and style’ of their campaign.

He said: ‘The image was used as a lead image in news stories about our campaign, which we think is an incorrect interpretation of our marketing strategy.

‘We didn’t want that image reducing our marketing strategy to a crotch shot. So we have removed it from our site.’

He added: ‘Media interest is good. But we didn’t want all our hard work to be sensationalized.’

As well as being famed for its pristine beaches and coral reefs, the area in Queensland has been branded by the Gold Coast Bulletin as a ‘gay comfort’ city.