Australia hopes Nicole Kidman outback epic will help tourism

“Australia” is scheduled for worldwide release in November and Tourism Australia has announced a global marketing campaign to accompany the movie, convinced its stunning outback vistas will have travelers flocking Down Under.

“This movie will potentially be seen by tens of millions of people and it will bring to life little-known aspects of Australia’s extraordinary natural environment, history, and indigenous culture,” Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson told an industry conference at the weekend.

The release of ‘Australia’ offers the tourism industry “one of its greatest promotional opportunities in many years,” he said.

The Baz Luhrmann-directed movie, a love story about an English aristocrat played by Kidman falling in love with Jackman’s outback cattleman, hits cinemas at a time when Australia is struggling to attract people from overseas.

There were 1.9 million visitors in the four months to April, meaning growth was flat compared to the same period last year, with slight falls in tourist numbers from Britain and New Zealand.

More worrying for tourism chiefs was a 19 percent slump in Japanese visitors and sharp decreases in numbers from South Korea and Hong Kong.

“Crocodile Dundee,” released in 1986, led to a surge of arrivals when its star Paul Hogan fronted an international advertising campaign telling tourists he would “put another shrimp on the barbie” for them.

Subsequent campaigns have been less successful.

The most recent, featuring a bikini-clad model asking “where the bloody hell are you?” was met with bemusement in many countries and was briefly banned in Britain after being deemed offensive.

Tourism chiefs were also criticized in 2003 for failing to spot the promotional potential of Pixar’s animated feature “Finding Nemo,” about a clown fish on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef searching for his son.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, meanwhile, has denied a media report that his predecessor Paul Keating was set to become one of the faces of a new “G’Day UK” tourism campaign in the United Kingdom.

Rudd said the story about Keating, dubbed “The Lizard of Oz” by British tabloids after placing a guiding hand on the Queen’s back during a 1992 royal visit, was idle speculation.

“It’s about as probable I reckon as having (former prime minister and Keating rival) John Howard and Paul Keating team up for a dual number in the Eurovision song contest,” he told reporters Monday.

“And probably about as likely of taking the prize.”

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