The report underscores the growing significance of the Indian economy to Australia’s future economic prosperity and identifies the tourism industry as a sector with significant potential to capitalise on India’s projected growth.
Tourism Accommodation Australia was involved in the consultations with Varghese providing industry insights into the role Indian travellers currently play in Australia’s tourism industry as well as identifying known challenges and inhibitors to future growth.
Varghese’s report clearly identifies the immense opportunity for Australia’s tourism industry, with the number of travellers coming from India expected to grow four-fold by 2015, meaning Indian tourism could be worth over $9 billion each year to the Australian economy.
Tourism Accommodation Australia CEO Carol Giuseppi said the report was a timely reminder to Government and industry that Australia’s policy settings, marketing campaigns and relationships must be focused on ensuring we capitalise on this unique opportunity. “India and Australia currently enjoy a very warm relationship with significant cultural, social and economic ties, making us well positioned to take advantage of the huge potential growth in travellers from India,” Giuseppi said.
“The scale of opportunity for Australia’s tourism industry cannot be overstated – the report concludes that India is projected to go from being Australia's eighth largest tourism market today to our fourth by 2035.”
“With today’s global tourism industry more competitive than ever, we need to ensure our policy settings are calibrated correctly so that Australia can make the most from India’s projected growth in the coming years.”
“The report identifies more direct flight paths as crucial to unlocking potential growth from India and more targeted marketing campaigns required to enhance awareness of Australia as a tourism destination.”
“We commend the Federal Government on the announcement of a new Australia-India air services agreement on the 22 June. This agreement enables Australian airlines to operate unlimited services between Australia and the six major metropolitan airports in India and Indian airlines to operate unlimited services between India and six airports in Australia.”
“We encourage the Federal Government to adopt the further recommendations in this landmark report, particularly in relation to additional funding for Tourism Australia for marketing initiatives, forging strong relationships with the Indian Government gaining a better understanding of India's outbound tourism market and ensuring we continue to grow airline services between the two countries ”
Tourism Accommodation Australia looks forward to future collaborative efforts such as the new research projects recommended in the report.
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