The latest round of Tourism Australia’s highly-successful ‘Best Jobs in the World’ campaign has come to a close with an American finance graduate, a Brazilian travel photographer, an Irish internet entrepreneur, a French tourism graduate, an English film costume designer and a Canadian adventure tour guide guide beating 330,000 competitors from 196 countries to win seven of Australia’s ‘best jobs’.

Their new jobs include being an outback adventurer, a park ranger and a chief ‘funster’. A seventh job was also added this year, with Virgin Australia creating a new ‘high flyer’ position that will see one of the winners fly across Australia with the airline, championing “Australia’s best customer service experiences.”

Tourism Australia’s ‘Best Jobs in the World’ competition is part of a major international marketing push to promote tourism opportunities provided by Australia’s Working Holiday Maker (WHM) program.

Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy says the competition had been extremely tough, but that all of the finalists deserved great credit for their performances.

“I’d like to congratulate all of the 18 finalists for the tremendous enthusiasm and effort they have put into this competition. The successful candidates each demonstrated incredible talent, energy and desire throughout the application process and will, I’m sure, take these positive attributes into the job with them,” he says.

“Importantly, the youth campaign that sits underneath this ‘Best Jobs’ competition is already delivering results, with commercial partners like Virgin Australia and STA Travel reporting increased bookings and Tourism Australia seeing a significant spike in international interest in Australia’s Working Holiday Maker program.”

Since the competition was launched, Tourism Australia’s working holiday maker Facebook page has more than trebled from 150,000 to close to 470,000 fans, with young people around the world actively seeking information about a working holiday in Australia.

The campaign is supported by Destination New South Wales, Tourism Northern Territory, Tourism Victoria, Tourism Western Australia, Tourism and Events Queensland and South Australian Tourism Commission.