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Irishman Allan Dixon has made it to the finals of the Best Job in the World competition, and will fly to Australia next month to battle it out with Frenchwoman Aude Mayans and American Graham Freeman for the role of Outback Adventurer.
The three will spend a week exploring the Australian outback, tasked with the job of uncovering the best backpacker experiences and adventures for working holiday makers. The winner will get to spend six months working as an adventurer in the Northern Territory, with salary package totalling $100,000 (€79,000).
Allan made the final three in the Outback Adventurer category following a massive social media campaign where he targeted celebrities including Hugh Jackman, Bear Grylls and Usain Bolt to attract maximum attention.
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The 26 year-old DCU graduate beat off 620,000 applications from 330,000 individuals to make the Best Job in the World finals.
There are six separate jobs on offer including include a wildlife caretaker whose role includes waking kangaroos in South Australia, a chief funster who will attend VIP parties and events in NSW and a taste master promoting the great food and wine in Western Australia. Three finalists were selected for each of the six roles.
A BBC reporter from Afghanistan, a travel photographer from Brazil and adventure tour guide from Canada are among the 18 finalists heading Down Under to compete in the final stage of the Tourism Australia contest.
The jobs were announced by Tourism Australia earlier this year as part of an Aus$4 million youth tourism campaign. Tourism officials then had the mammoth task of sifting through 600,000 applications, watching more than 45,000 videos and paring down the applications to three finalists in each of the six job categories.
“It’s show time. The candidates now face their very own Australian working holiday - a week of tests and challenges which will ultimately decide who ends up winning these six dream jobs,” Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy said today.