The movie "Australia" featuring local talents Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman may have a failure in the box office, but it sure does help tourism in Australia very interesting to travelers.

Tourism Australia chief executive Andrew McEvoy said that Australia's tourism sector attracted 5.6 million visitors last year and experienced steady growth, on the back of steady decline in the global tourism market which fell four percent in 2009.

McEvoy said that from a campaign perspective, Australia performed better than most countries in the tourism industry. And he attributes this success to the movie.

He told a Senate budget hearing" "You'd have to say it had an element of success, it was a good campaign for its time and my view ... is that Tourism Australia were clever to try and capitalise on the publicity around 'Australia', the movie."

The government bankrolled $100 million for the global marketing campaign of the 2008 film. But despite a big marketing budget, the film was snubbed by moviegoers in the U.S. and received poor reviews from many movie critics.

McEvoy said that his office is engaged in its latest campaign under the banner, "There's nothing like Australia," and has earmarked $150 million for the program over three years.

However, local tourism remained flat even though Australians took more leave last year. Outstanding vacation days dipped from 123 million to 118 million.

McEvoy said Tourism Australia could not take full credit for the drop because the global financial crisis had an impact, but Australians seemed to have the right idea. More than 40 percent of Australians now said they understood the importance of taking leave for productivity, and 22 percent did something about it, research showed.