In 2005, acclaimed Australian film director Baz Luhrmann donned an Akubra (that's a kind of Aussie slouch hat) and drizabone (and that's Aussie for riding coat) and saddled up for The Great Australian Cattle Drive, joining a team of drovers and enthusiastic city slickers to push 500 head of cattle down South Australia's dusty Birdsville Track. The golden sunrises, the stark saltbush plains and the crack of the stockwhip clearly worked its magic-inspired by the experience, Luhrmann returned to his Sydney base to pen a new script, simply entitled "Australia".

Starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and set for worldwide release in November 2008, this epic Outback romance-the most expensive Australian movie ever made-is also the most anticipated local film in history, what Luhrmann himself calls "the Olympics of cinema."

It's an appropriate metaphor on many levels-in fact, Tourism Australia is pinning a whole marketing campaign on the film's release, anticipating that it will capture what was last achieved during the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games: global attention.

"The film industry has an amazing capacity to stimulate visitation," says Tourism Australia's managing director Geoff Buckley. "You only have to look at movies like "Crocodile Dundee" here in Australia, "Lord of the Rings" in New Zealand, even "Harry Potter". Regardless of whether it succeeds at the box office, we're anticipating that "Australia" will act as a catalyst, motivating people to travel here and experience it for themselves. You've seen the movie, now see the country-that's what we believe will happen."

Luhrmann's film could not have come at a better time for the local tourism industry. Despite a record year in 2007, with 5.6 million visitors making their way Down Under, the sector has showed signs of stagnation in the first half of 2008, slowed by a booming Australian dollar, rising fuel costs and a downturn in the aviation industry.

Story credits - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27559662/ - By Julie Miller - Forbes Traveller