Key facts
- Tourism Australia has collaborated with ICEHOUSE lead singer, Iva Davies and Qantas to create an online video clip to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Great Southern Land.
- Iva Davies was inspired to write the song while on a Qantas plane flying over the vast landscape of central Australia on his way to the UK for the first time in 1981.
- Created specifically for online media, the clip features landmarks across the country and is a tribute from everyday characters across Australia and celebrated musicians.
Key quotes
- “For the past 30 years Great Southern Land has been an inspirational and positive anthem for our country. This clip will be shared with online audiences over the world – including with Tourism Australia’s 3.4 million Facebook fans – to reignite some of the passion and emotional connection that people feel towards Australia when they hear this song.”Andrew McEvoy, Managing Director, Tourism Australia.
- “It is really humbling that so many Australians including artists that I respect, have taken the time to come together to form this amazing clip for Tourism Australia, showcasing the beautiful destinations Australia has to offer the world. As a musician, I’ve travelled this vast country many times and seen some awe-inspiring places but what I’ve learnt is that you never stop discovering the beautiful colours and changing landscapes of Australia.” Iva Davies, frontman of ICEHOUSE.
Full story
2012-08-30 — /travelprnews.com/ — Tourism Australia has collaborated with Friend of Australia ambassador and ICEHOUSE lead singer, Iva Davies and Qantas to create an online video clip to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Australia’s unofficial anthem, Great Southern Land.
From an oyster farmer at Barilla Bay in Tasmania and a local choir from the Blue Mountains, to famous artists like Katie Noonan, Van She, Eskimo Joe and Cut Copy, Australians have come together to pay tribute to beautiful destinations across the country and reconnect with the Australian landscape through music.
Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy said that the song Great Southern Land provides a natural platform to showcase why there’s nothing like Australia to the rest of the world.
“For the past 30 years Great Southern Land has been an inspirational and positive anthem for our country. This clip will be shared with online audiences over the world including with Tourism Australia’s 3.4 million Facebook fans – to reignite some of the passion and emotional connection that people feel towards Australia when they hear this song,” Mr McEvoy said.
“We know from research that more and more travellers are turning to word-of-mouth and online media for holiday inspiration and collaborating with advocates like Iva Davies and our 160 Friends of Australia ambassadors is a powerful way for Tourism Australia to reach new audiences.”
Created specifically for online media, the clip features landmarks across the country such as Uluru, Kangaroo Island, Perth’s Cottesloe Beach and Rottnest Island, Parliament House in Canberra, Federation Square and Degraves Lane in Melbourne, Sydney’s Bondi Beach, Chinatown and Taronga Zoo, Tasmania’s spectacular coastline and Crystal Cascades in Tropical North Queensland.
The clip is a tribute from everyday characters across Australia and celebrated musicians, including Eskimo Joe, Katie Noonan, Cut Copy, Muscles, Jonathan Boulet, Young Talent Time, Van She, The Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and more.
“It is really humbling that so many Australians including artists that I respect, have taken the time to come together to form this amazing clip for Tourism Australia, showcasing the beautiful destinations Australia has to offer the world. As a musician, I’ve travelled this vast country many times and seen some awe-inspiring places but what I’ve learnt is that you never stop discovering the beautiful colours and changing landscapes of Australia,” said Iva Davies, frontman of ICEHOUSE.
Iva Davies was inspired to write the song while on a Qantas plane flying over the vast landscape of central Australia on his way to the UK for the first time in 1981.
“There’s a real sense of the land in this song, you can see wide open plains and red earth, huge skies and isolation whenever you hear it. There is so much mystery in the music, and I think that’s what drew me to it from an early age,” said Stuart MacLeod, Eskimo Joe.
The album, Primitive Man which features the song Great Southern Land, sold over 650,000 copies when it was first released in Australia on the 30th August 1982 and continues to sell to this day with songs from the album receiving high levels of airplay in Europe and the US every year. The anniversary edition of Primitive Man was released in July this year and contains a DVD featuring interviews and TV performance footage.
Tourism Australia’s Friends of Australia program is a global network of over 160 advocates including Collette Dinnigan, The Wiggles, Brett Lee, Dick Smith, Matt Moran and more, who act as spokespeople and ambassadors for Australia on the world stage.
The Great Southern Land project is collaboration between Tourism Australia and Iva Davies, with special thanks to Qantas.
The clip can be viewed at Tourism Australia’s YouTube Page: www.youtube.com/australia
Contacts
Tourism Australia
Kim Moore
Public Affairs Manager
P. 61 2 9361 1306
E. kmoore@tourism.australia.com
W. http://www.media.australia.com