Australia Week

Since 2004, Australia Week has brought Australian food and wine, travel, film, arts, culture, fashion and business to a US audience. With over 15,000 participants in 2008, it was the largest annual foreign country promotion in the United States. The event is produced by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Qantas Airways, Tourism Australia and Austrade. The ten-day promotion is held annually during the month of January in Los Angeles and New York. The objective of Australia Week is to demonstrate Australia as an innovative, high growth, sophisticated economy, with leading edge research and technology in products, goods and services. The program highlights Australia’s economic credentials as a desirable place in which to do business and invest, source goods and services.

G'Day USA: Australia Week presents Australia as a modern, sophisticated society, while setting an accurate perception of Australia in the United States.

Pioneered in 2004 as G’Day LA, by the Australian Consul General in Los Angeles, the Hon. John Olsen AO, G'DAY USA: Australia Week has quickly expanded to become a bi-coastal celebration with top Australian celebrities, filmmakers, chefs and politicians taking part. Australia Week is now arguably the largest single foreign country promotion held annually in the United States, showcasing all things Australian.

In 2006, Olsen was reassigned to the post of Consul General in New York. It was then Olsen re-branded the event from G'DAY LA to a larger umbrella of G'DAY USA.

Since its inception, G’DAY USA: Australia Week has raised the profile of Australia, its policy perspectives and the capabilities of its key industries in the US market, particularly entertainment and culture, tourism and sport, food and beverages, energy, manufacturing and education. It has been an important instrument for promoting Australia as a destination for productive investment from the United States. In addition, the event set a benchmark for the international promotion of Australia and Australian interests.

To appeal to the New York audience of high-powered investors and research and development (R&D) executives, the Australia Week Steering Committee added Innovation and Financial Services days to the program in 2007.

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