22 direct flights to Australia

Tourism Australia is excited about India, one of the 15 international markets it prioritises globally. Come September, it will have 22 direct flights from India, shares Robin Mack, Executive General Manager, Commercial & Business Events Australia, Tourism Australia.

Hazel Jain

Tourism Australia recently hosted five corporates from India on a famil – the first group from an international source market since the country’s borders re-opened. Robin Mack, Executive General Manager, Commercial & Business Events Australia, Tourism Australia, is excited about the market.

“MICE has been a very important segment for us. To share some data points, we had 59,000 MICE visitors coming into Australia from India and they spent AUD 339 million in the visitor economy. Now that we are coming out of COVID, it has gained even more importance. We think the segment from India has great potential for us, especially the incentive category,” he says.

Mack believes that Australia will be back to 2019 visitor numbers by 2024. “It is not going to be an immediate return but we really believe the potential from India is huge. If we look at the market as a whole – leisure, business events, education – previously India was at 4,00,000 visitors coming in, which was AUD 1.8 billion to the visitor economy. We believe that is really going to come back, particularly with the direct air connectivity,” he says, adding, “Air access is key to bringing in the numbers. We are about 49 per cent of 2019 levels coming into the country. We are projecting it to be 70 per cent by December 2022. But for India, it’s a real positive story. We are already ahead of our direct aviation from 2019 when we had seven direct flights. By September 2022, we will have 22 direct flights from India! We are very excited about that. India is a great story for us!”

MICE and events

In 2019, Australia welcomed 400,000 visitors (source: Australian Bureau of Statistics) from India who contributed $1.8 billion (IVS) to the Australian economy. The India Economic Strategy to 2035 believes Indian tourism could be worth more than $9 billion to Australia. That report found the number of Indian tourists visiting Australia will grow four-fold to nearly 1.2 million. “We are really pushing towards that million visitors for 2030. We are hopeful of that since we are high-yielding destination. We prioritise 15 markets globally and India has been one of them,” Mack adds.

That is why, he says, the Australia High Commission has dedicated extra support to facilitate easy and quicker visas for the larger incentive groups coming in from India. “From the MICE perspective, our data tells us that the average stay is about five nights covering two destinations. We would obviously want this to be more – maybe seven nights and beyond, perhaps by adding a third destination. We do get a lot of repeat visitors, so we hope that on the second visit they might want to try a new destination,” he adds.

Australia recently welcomed a 650-delegate Prudential group from India visiting Melbourne and Gold Coast, followed by a 300-pax group arriving to Sydney.

To leverage this corporate demand, he says, Tourism Australia has recently launched the second phase of its new campaign focused on MICE that says ‘There’s Nothing like Australia for Business Events’. “To ensure we can cater to increased demand, Australia has had an unprecedented infrastructure growth in the last two years. More than a 100 new or refurbished hotels opened in the last two years adding 12,000 new beds. We also have new experiences,” says Mack, adding, “We are lucky to have a great calendar of events – Australia Open and the Grand Prix. And of course, the ICC World Cup – these offer great opportunities to us. We have such a shared love for the game.”

Going green

Underlining some key trends that he sees emerge, that Australia is working towards catering to, Mack says, “What we see globally is a real trend towards sustainability and that conscious traveller coming in and picking a destination based on that. It is becoming more of a driver of destination choice. We have a great sustainability story. Our role is to educate and advocate that. We have great experts on the ground – from venues or DMCs – who can curate a bespoke experience that delivers on the sustainability. Another trend we are hearing about more and more in corporate programmes is to add wellness into them. Corporates are asking for both sustainability and wellness these days.”