Outbound

Tourism Australia to offer new elements for 2006-'07

Reema Sisodia - Mumbai

Tourism Australia is getting increasingly serious about the Indian market. According to a survey conducted during the period 2004-05, Australia received 68,000 tourists from India for the first time putting India on the number one slot in terms of percentage growth among all nationalities travelling to Australia. This translates to almost 22 per cent increase in Indian visitors during that period.

The tourism board is also aiming to strengthen its MICE and corporate travel business from India apart from the leisure market. The recently held event at Bangkok, TABEE 2006 (Team Australia Business Events Educational) also focused on corporate and incentive programmes to boost corporate, end-user and travel agent interactions. Maggie White, regional manager (South and Southeast Asia) for Tourism Australia says, "We saw a very good growth in the area of corporate business and incentives to Australia and we will continue to concentrate on this segment along with the leisure business."

On the leisure front, Tourism Australia will conduct its Indian event called the Indian Travel Mission in September 2006. The board aims to focus on newer products in the region namely the Kangaroo Islands, Adelaide and Darwin as there are direct flights by Qantas to Darwin in the northern territory. White adds that the Aussie Specialist Programme, which is spread across 23 Indian cities at present, would be glad to spread its wings further to other areas where interested players would be keen to be part of the programme. Though currently the western region of India is providing the maximum business, it's the northern region which Tourism Australia considers as its future potential region.