Australia witnesses record 19% growth in Indian arrivals during FY15

With India climbing to the eighth position among the inbound source markets for Australia, the latter has witnessed a significant growth from the market. Talking to the media at a press briefing during the India Travel Mission 2015 at the Sheraton Bangalore yesterday, Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager, India & Gulf, Tourism Australia, said, "We have identified India as the fastest growing market for Tourism Australia. We have a dream to achieve 300,000 visitors by 2020, and earn up to AUD 1.9 billion in spends. The year 2014-15 was a record year for us, ever since the opening of Tourism Australia's office in India. There have been a few milestones. We crossed 200,000 arrivals, thereby recording a growth of 19 per cent for the year ended June 30, 2015. Indian tourists contributed almost AUD 960 million to the Australian economy, which is a growth of almost 13 per cent. The spend has grown faster than the increase in arrivals."

Kashikar went on to say, "The third and the most significant milestone is that India has improved its ranking as the 8th inbound market, from its 11th position earlier, overtaking Germany, Hong Kong, and South Korea in a span of 12-18 months. This is a critical achievement for us. The leisure segment, which includes the VFR and holiday segments, that are now driving the overall growth in the Australian economy, has been two-third of the overall visitation and the spend is almost close to 37 per cent of the total, which is a significant factor."

According to estimates, during the ICC Cricket World Cup co-hosted by Australia earlier this year, a minimum of 9,000 Indians traveled to Australia, the upper limit being in between 9,000 and 15,000. "The growth that we recorded during the first quarter of this year, was almost 42 per cent on account of the World Cup, and the Indian cricket team's travel to Australia. It has been a great year for us. We would like to build on this growth and the strong foundation that we have laid for ourselves to capitalize and leverage on these activities," Kashikar stated.

For the six months to June 2015, Australia received 122,900 visitors from India, a 24 per cent increase over the same period in the previous year. Kashikar said that they are expecting to end the year with 235,000 arrivals from India, and cross AUD 1,000 million in traveller spend.

"Our endevaour is to drive the holiday spends per person, that is why we have missions like these that are opportunities to launch products; 40 per cent of suppliers this time are first-time participants. Suppliers want to invest in the Indian market, and capitalise on the growth," Kashikar added.