Australia eyes 10,000 Indian tourists during CW Games

Tourism Australia hopes to receive around 10,000 visitors from India for the next year’s Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, as it looks to copromote sports and lesser known destinations in the Indian market.

Around 260,000 Indians visited Australia last year and arrivals grew 11 per cent. Over 40 per cent of Indians travel to meet friends and relatives and destinations are limited to Melbourne and Sydney. Tourism Australia is taking steps to attract more high spending leisure and business visitors from India to the country. Arrivals from India are growing in double digits for last four years.

“We are hoping for around 10,000 visitors from India at the Commonwealth Games. That is our aspiration,” said John O’Sullivan, managing director of Tourism Australia. The games will be held next April. This would be second big sporting event attracting Indians after the cricket World Cup in 2015, which attracted over 15,000 Indians.

Tourism Australia is the government agency responsible for attracting international visitors to the country, both for leisure and business events.

O'Sullivan said more than 27 per cent of Indians visit Australia for holidays. “We have seen an increase in leisure travellers over the past few years.” Other growth drivers are meeting and incentive tours.

Also Tourism Australia is focused on promoting new destinations in the country and hopes that the Commonwealth Games will lead to more Indians visiting the Great Barrier Reef and tropical Queensland. “More than 57,000 Indian travellers visited Queensland in the year ended March 2017 and we know many more will come to our state next year for the Commonwealth Games,” said Leanne Coddington, CEO, Tourism & Events, Queensland.

The tourism body is also pushing for more direct flights between India and Australia, as it expects India to be among top source market by 2025. Currently there are seven weekly Air India flights from Delhi to Sydney and Melbourne. In contrast there are flights from 17 cities in China to seven destinations in Australia.

“We are talking to all carriers for direct service between India and Australia. During our last visit we met officials of Air India and Jet Airways. We would like to see Air India increase flights to Australia and also from more places like Mumbai,” O'Sullivan added.