Rigged out like the Man From Snowy River, Dwyer, 30, turned up at the world's most important travel industry trade show, the International Tourism Exchange in Berlin and began offering the big shots who control the industry's fortunes, a product they could immediately include in brochures that circulate in millions.
The wholesalers had all heard about Australia, its Barrier Reef and its deserts, but this amiable young man talked instead about mountains where the air was so clear you cou1d see forever and not see a house, of forests scented with eucalyptus and reverberating with the sounds of birds that laugh, or imitate the ring of a bell or the crack of a whip,
He sold them a dream, and in fluent German. Dwyer is the fresh face of marketing. He runs the Lake Eildon-based Diamantina Touring Company, established in 1987, which conducts boat tours around Wilson's Promontory, as well as bush walking and four wheel drive tours.
He is also the form behind the Victorian Tour Operators Association.
There are now 120 similar companies in the association and Dwyer has received expressions of interest about forming a national body of small tour operators.
Dwyer is working on Introducing an accreditation system for association members and trying to organise public liability insurance. "We want to get Australia's smaller operators accepted as a vital part of the world tourist industry," he says.
He believes that by highlighting the things that make Australia different and allowing tourists to experience them first hand, Australia's small tour operators can win a larger slice of the market. If that means dressing up as a bushman at International tourism conventions, then so be it. ".Business is business, but if you're selling the Australian bush experience, then you shouldn't have to do business in a shirt and tie, "Dwyer says.