Tourism Australia has enlisted the support of popular Hong Kong actor and ‘cantopop’ singer Ekin Cheng to showcase Cairns and Sydney’s best tourism experiences in a new television travel series aimed at encouraging more visitors from Greater China.

The star will be joined by fellow Asian celebrities Andy Chan Siu Chun, Jacqueline Wong and Lai Yi Wong to film the new travelogue series, ‘Tailor Made Tours’, which will be broadcast throughout Asia with an expected audience of 30 million viewers primarily from mainland China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Macau and Taiwan.

Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy believes advocacy by popular Asian celebrities in this travel series will inspire more visitors from the fastest growing and most valuable region for Australian tourism.

“Working with celebrities who have a genuine passion for Australia in this new television series is a great way to bring our incredible tourism experiences to life to 30 million viewers across Greater China,” Mr McEvoy said.

“This series will provide viewers with a tantalizing glimpse of some amazing attractions available to Chinese visitors in Cairns and Sydney including sky diving over Cairns, snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef, surfing on Bondi Beach and taking in the majestic Blue Mountains at Wolgan Valley Resort,” he added.

Tourism Australia has used the opportunity to welcome Ekin Cheng into its Friends of Australia advocacy program, which recruits well known individuals to promote Australia to people around the world.

“Ekin joins other Asian advocates in our Friends of Australia program, including Show Lo and Rainie Yang, boy band Grasshopper, renowned chef Wong Wing Chee and famous couple Xia Yu and Yuan Quan who do such a great job of advocating our country across this region,” Mr McEvoy said.

Tourism Australia has partnered with Destination NSW and Tourism and Events Queensland to highlight world class tourism experiences in Cairns, Sydney, the Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley regions.

Early last year, Tourism Australia brought popular Asian celebrities Show Lo and Rainie Yang to Australia to film an online Chinese drama series in Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales which was viewed online nearly 120 million times by people across Greater China.

China now represents Australia’s fastest growing and most valuable market for international visitors, worth $4.2 billion to the industry with 626,400 visitors in 2012, a 16 per cent increase on 2011. Tourism Australia believes there is potential for this market to grow to up to $9 billion in expenditure by 2020.

The new online drama series will be broadcast in September 2013 on popular Asian television channel, TVB Jade Channel as well as TVB’s online channel ‘My TV’.