New Zealand Flag MIDDLE EARTH and the Hobbits recast New Zealand as a nature lover’s paradise and helped propel the islands’ share of global tourism to record levels. Now Australia’s tourism leaders are turning to another celluloid extravaganza, the movie Australia , to attract a new wave of international visitors keen to experience the real thing. Tourism chiefs are to unveil a deal between the film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, its director, Baz Luhrmann and the federal tourism body, Tourism Australia, at a tourism conference in Perth today. High hopes the Hobbit effect will hit home