A tourism promotion campaign spectacularly backfired on the Macedonian Government, when it was revealed that it stole a photo of a German lake.

With borders closed for Macedonian citizens at a time of a major Second Wave of the epidemic, the SDSM led Government decided that the pre-election period is a good time to distribute vouchers to low income citizens to visit domestic tourism sites. A website was set up to distribute the vouchers, with the slogan “No place like home”. But the promo material used a picture that was taken, without permission, from a German photographer.

Funny Sunday story. I’m sharing this image freely on the web and every now and then it ends up in weird places. Currently it’s making rounds on social media as the Government of Macedonia decided to use it to promote their tourism and Macedonians are now trying to figure out where this is. This is Konigssee in Germany. I’m dying, said photographer Simon Migaj.

The embarrassing move quickly turned into a social media meme, with users hijacking the Government promoted hashtag #домасиедома to promote other classic destinations in Macedonia.