How Neighbours finale will sell Australia

Tourism Australia has partnered with the makers of Neighbours to entice would-be holidaymakers to book a trip Down Under when the finale screens in the UK.

Memorable scenes from the history of Neighbours will be used to help entice British TV viewers into booking a holiday Down Under when the final episode of the long-running soap airs in the UK on Friday night.

Tourism Australia has partnered with Neighbours’ production company Fremantle on a one-off 30-second commercial, which will air during the 90-minute final episode at 9pm local time on Channel 5 in the UK.

The ad mixes memorable scenes from the program’s history into Tourism Australia’s existing Don’t Go Small, Go Australia campaign, which showcases some of the country’s iconic locations.

In homage to the show, the end frame will use the show’s instantly recognisable font for the word ‘Australia’.

News of the show’s impending cancellation has led to a recent spike in ratings. While the days when single episodes would attract 20 million viewers in the UK are long gone, recent instalments have been among Channel 5’s most-viewed shows of the week.

Margot Robbie on the Neighbours set in 2017. The show has long depicted the Aussie character and lifestyle. Picture: Supplied

The appeal of soap operas like Neighbours and Home and Away in selling Australia has long been recognised. A pre-pandemic study by Deloitte Access Economics found as many as 230,000 tourists came here every year largely as a result of viewing Australian film and TV content, and this represented $725 million in tourism expenditure.

“Aussie films and TV broadcast overseas project an image of the country and play a role in enticing people from overseas, particularly from the UK, to Australia. Over a long period, Neighbours has played a part in that,” Deloitte Access Economics partner John O’Mahony said.

“This trend is called ‘set-jetting’, where screen reaches the mass population, drawing them to a destination or attraction specifically to visit a location where a film or TV program was shot,” Mr O’Mahony wrote in his study.

Tourism expert Associate Professor Pierre Benckendorff from the University of Queensland said New Zealand had been the most successful at this, with the Lord of the Rings movies generating huge tourism business for the country, but Australia had also benefited from movies such as Crocodile Dundee, as well as the soap operas.

Lincoln Lewis and Ashleigh Brewer filmed episodes of Neighbours on location in Port Douglas, Queensland. But more often the show stuck to a typically suburban setting.

Neighbours was not renowned for showcasing iconic Australian locations, with most exterior shots confined to Lasseter’s pub and Pin Oak Court (the real life Ramsay Street, in Vermont South in Melbourne’s east). But it did a great job in showing overseas audiences the laid-back and generally carefree nature of Australians, Assoc Prof Benckendorff said.

“Neighbours always resonated in the UK,” he said. “You’ve got to imagine what it’s like being in Britain in the middle of winter, so in that sense it was a very aspirational show. Even if they were filming in winter, it always looked like summer.”

But could that have given British overseas viewers a mistaken impression of the true nature of Melbourne’s weather?

“Possibly,” Assoc Prof Benckendorff said. “But a cold Melbourne winter is still nicer than a dark British winter.”

Originally published as How Neighbours finale will sell Australia