Increase in aviation capacity and integrated brand campaign resulted in a 39 per cent growth in footfall of Indian travellers in Australia during May this year, according to Tourism Australia.
"Australia witnessed the highest growth in Indian arrivals in a single month achieved during the past seven years for the month of May 2014, with a remarkable 39 per cent increase over previous year," Tourism Australia Country Manager, India and Gulf, Nishant Kashikar told PTI here.
According to data, there were 21,700 visitors from India during May 2014, bringing the total for the five months to May to 82,500, an increase of 19 per cent relative to the same period previous year.
Increase in aviation capacity by 93,400 seats (on an annualised basis) with the introduction of direct, non-stop flights on the triangulated route of Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne by Air India, and attractive tactical co-operative marketing campaigns with Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines and trade partners, including MakeMyTrip, Kuoni, Mercury Travels among others have also contributed to this growth, Kashikar said.
Australia has witnessed a sustained growth in arrivals from India in the recent past and aspirational integrated brand campaign like 'There's Nothing like Australia' across print, television, digital and out-of-home mediums have also resulted in the growth, he said.
Further, interest was generated by content-integration activities by showcasing Australia on the popular drama series and in the hit Bollywood production also helped, he added.
"We are extremely pleased with the results achieved during the peak summer holiday season and the growing popularity of Australia amongst Indian travellers. We are geared up to keep the momentum going and optimistic that the launch of our food and wine centric campaign, and the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, will lead to further growth in visitor arrivals from India in the coming months," Kashikar said.
India is one of the world's fastest growing outbound travel markets and going forward, arrivals from India are expected to perform well, with an average annual financial year growth rate of 7.2 per cent through to the financial year 2020-21, he said.
The Tourism Forecasting Committee has estimated arrivals from India to Australia for the year 2014-15, to be 190,000.
