Tourism Australia gets help from world’s best chefs to spruik our tucker

AUSTRALIA’S peak tourism body has signed up chefs from key visitor markets to spruik our culinary qualities through a mix of TV shows, blogs and articles.

AUSTRALIA has enlisted some of the world’s top celebrity chefs in an effort to capture the hearts, stomachs and minds of tourists.

Ahead of the official launch of Tourism Australia’s new Restaurant Australia food and wine-based tourism campaign later this year, the country’s peak tourism body has signed up chefs from key visitor markets to spruik Australia’s culinary qualities through a mixture of TV shows, blogs and articles.

The latest is John Torode’s Australia, a 10-part series which has just begun airing on UKTV’s Good Food Channel, that sees the Australian born, UK-based chef visit places that inspired his passion for food.

“These shows provide a tasty appetiser for the promotion of Restaurant Australia, bringing together passionate locals, breathtaking landscapes and the freshest of produce to represent some of the unique and most distinctive food and wine experiences of our beautiful country,” Tourism Australia chief marketing officer Nick Baker said.

“The UK economy is picking up, the Brits are starting to travel again and we believe this show will dish up some compelling new reasons for them to make their next holiday Down Under.”

Top chef ... John Torode, left, with Vlado Gregurek at Vlado's in Richmond.

Tourism Australia hopes the series will lead to a further spike in interest among UK visitors.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show the number of UK arrivals jumped 6.8 per cent in 2013 to 634,100 — a result helped by an influx for both The Ashes and the British Lions tour in June and July.

Highlights of the series include Mr Torode, who is a former host of the UK version of MasterChef, cooking for Bronte Beach surf club juniors, spearfishing in Tropical North Queensland, and diving for abalone off Bruny Island in Tasmania.

He will also learn to surf at Torquay in Victoria and cook in the Barossa Valley with Maggie Beer.

John Torode’s Australia is one of a number of series aimed at attracting visitors from key markets such as India, Canada, Hong Kong, Germany and New Zealand interested in high-quality food and wine.

Highlight ... Maggie Beer will cook with John Torode in an episode of his show filmed in Australia.

In recent months, Hong Kong-based celebrity chef Nicholas Tse has travelled to Victoria and Tasmania to film two episodes of Cook Man and TV series Dishing up Australia with Al Brown has been broadcast in New Zealand.

Food blogger Niamh Shields is attending Melbourne Food and Wine Festival this month as well as a selection of restaurants and wineries in New South Wales, while Indian chef Sanjeev Kapoor is currently in Australia to film a series for The Food Channel.

Mr Baker said he hoped the additional profile their visits generated would give tourism a further bounce ahead of Tourism Australia’s launch of its Restaurant Australia campaign.

The campaign aims to promote Australia as the world’s greatest restaurant.

“Food and wine is a huge focus for us this year in our international marketing, as we seek to more aggressively play a drawcard which we’ve perhaps up to now undersold,” Mr Baker said.

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