It has endured sustained criticism ever since it was first announced by the Howard government in 2006. After being put on hold by the Rudd and Gillard governments, the centre was given a new lease of life with the election of the Abbott government in 2013.

The final design was announced on April 26, 2015.

It opened on April 16 this year, a week before the 100th anniversary of the Australian victory at Villers-Bretonneux.

Among the many criticisms are that the centre is a "boondoggle", a misuse of Defence Department funds, a ludicrous act of national validation and an act of self-indulgence by the descendants of white Australia.

Its many supporters, who include the Australian War Memorial's Brendan Nelson, say it is none of those things.

"I visited in early April, a few days before it opened to the public," Nelson says. "The building itself is a great engineering feat ... As you walk up towards the Australian National Memorial through the cemetery there is absolutely no disruption to the architectural aesthetics or the ambience."

Nelson, who notes the centre will continue to evolve as technology progressed, believes it is a place every Australian who goes to France should visit.

"I think young people in particular will be energised by the creative use of technology to bring the story to life," he says.

While Australian visitor numbers to the Western Front have fluctuated due to acts of terrorism in France and Belgium in recent years, Sonia Holt, of Visit Flanders, says the trends are heading north.

"Australia/New Zealand is a top-five international market to the Flanders Fields region in terms of numbers," she says.

Holt says Australians visiting the Western Front take the experience of commemoration seriously.

"Each Australian traveller, whether they consciously realise it or not, is on a pilgrimage. Many are motivated by a family connection ... others visit out of genuine interest and curiosity, which has been encouraged by the coverage given to the Western Front commemorations [including the centre].

"They leave with a lasting appreciation for the sacrifice made by the Australians and the men and women of so many nations ... an understanding of the waste and futility of war [and] a sense of responsibility to never forget."

Flemish battlefield guide Martial Masschelein, who has worked with thousands of Australian visitors, has his own reasons for doing the work.

His family, like tens of thousands across Belgium, was torn apart when the Germans invaded in August 1914.

Masschelein says that while German cemeteries, including the one at Langemark near Ypres where 44,000 soldiers are buried, 24,917 in a mass grave, are included on the tours, very few Germans come.

"A German once told me we should forget this (the war) and leave it behind us," he says. "I said the worst thing we can do is to forget history."

Nelson agrees. "Whether we are Australians by birth or Australians by choice, this is a war which changed us. It is a very significant layer in terms of our forming and emerging national identity," he says.

"Anyone who thinks that World War I, and what the diggers did, doesn't have anything to do with us today really needs to re-examine what it means to them to be an Australian."

Ian Fletcher, the centre's project director who "commuted" between Wanniassa and France for almost three years, says there is much more to consider than just the dollar cost.

"What has been invested here pales into insignificance given the price the people who died on the Western Front, and the families they left behind, paid," he says.

David Ellery visited Villers-Bretonneux with the help of the Department of Veterans' Affairs.