Australia’s growth story
Brent Anderson, Regional GM—South & South East Asia, Tourism Australia and Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager—India & Gulf, Tourism Australia, discuss the unprecedented growth of tourist arrivals from India to Australia.
The 16th edition of the recently-concluded Tourism Australia’s ‘India Travel Mission 2018’ (ITM 2018) in Jaipur, brought together 75 Australian tourism business to meet with 87 travel retailers from India in over 6,500 business appointments over three days. The event witnessed participation - pants and 20 buyer companies.
Brent Anderson, Regional General Manager—South & South East Asia, Tourism Australia seven out of the eight Australian states and territories who have come for this mission. Also, this is the biggest offshore event in terms of Australians who attend the show. With 335,000 arrivals, India is our number one market in terms of growth and arrivals to Australia.”
Talking about meeting their objectives, Anderson says, “Back in 2012, we developed ‘India 2020’ strategy. We are proud to say that two of our three goals have already been realised and we are quite close to achieving the third one. Exceeding the 300,000 arrivals already achieved in December 2017; we are now sitting at 335,000. In 2018, we are also looking at a double-digit growth. With this growth rate, half a million Indian arrivals will be achieved by 2020.”
Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager—India & Gulf, Tourism Australia, elaborates further on the remaining goals. He says, “We have not only exceeded our goal in terms of the number of arrivals but was also ranked as the top six for out- of- region travel for Indians. Looking at the past 10 years, the entire outbound industry has grown at almost 8 per cent with Australia’s arrivals alone at 10 per cent growth. The past years have been extremely crucial where the industry is growing at 9 per cent but we are growing at 16 per cent. There is a big gap between the pace at which we are growing and the pace of the industry. For the first six months, we have been growing at a rate of 22 per cent. Our 6 per cent growth in the first six months can be attributed to the hassle- free and seamless visa applications to Australia.”
Kashikar mentioned that the third goal is to achieve a spend of $ 1.9 billion. “With our current spend of $ 1.53 billion, we aim to achieve this goal by June 2019,” he said.
Whenever Indians visit Australia, they usually travel to the conventional destinations. Tourism Australia ensured that the trend changes. Kashikar says, “Having increased our focus from a demographic to psychographic targeting, we now target a segment called as ‘ high value traveller’. This means that a traveller is not only travelling to Australia but also contributing significantly to the Australian economy.
The launch of ‘ Signature Experiences’ in remote locations offers a diverse range of travel options including Australian Wildlife Collection, Great Golf Courses, Great Walks of Australia, Luxury Lodges and the Ultimate Winery Experiences. Tourists will not just travel to the key cities but also visit unexplored destinations which in turn will increase the length of the stay and add further to the economy. We aim to grow by 29 per cent.”