Pictured above L-R: Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson, Tourism Australia’s Francess-Anne Keeler, Nishant Kashikar

As Australia’s Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson, stated at the launch of the plan at ATE 2012 in Perth, India is one of the key Asian markets driving growth in this Asian century and investments in the market now would reap rich dividends in the future.

India is already one of the world’s fastest growing outbound travel markets and is predicted to grow to 50 million outbound travellers by 2020. It is Australia’s 11th market in terms of visitor arrivals.

Last year India contributed A$867 million to the Australian economy and has he potential to contribute up to A$2.3 billion annually by the end of the decade, that is if Australia successfully grows its market share.

And that’s where the plan comes in. The four key areas for the plan’s success are:

“Linking all the Australian state NTOS to speak as one voice and market all products through that voice is also an important pillar of the plan,” Ferguson said. “There is already high destination awareness among Indian travellers and “we want to turn aspiration to actual visit.”

However, one of the main obstacles is the lack of direct access between India and Australia – it’s a hard sector to make money on.

In response to WIT’s query on how the Australian authorities plan to attract more airlines to fly to Australia, Ferguson answered that airlines are privately owned. “We have to build business for direct flights and that could happen with the success of the 2020 plan.”

Added Andrew McEvoy, managing director of Tourism Australia (pictured left), “It’s a balance and we need high yield business traffic. Despite the historical link between Australia and India there is not much business traffic.”

To meet the target, an estimated extra 345,000 seats will be required. The current number of Indian visitors to Australia is not enough to viably launch direct flights.

To reach Australia from India’s key cities, Indian travellers have to travel for about 18 hours, with a transit via Singapore or Bangkok to Sydney or Melbourne.

However, Nishant Kashikar, Tourism Australia’s manager for India, said that is not a barrier for the Indians who plan to holiday.

“The question of stopover is not a barrier to Australia’s attractiveness,” noted Ferguson. “As business grows, airlines will find it viable to fly direct from India to Australia.”

Maggie White, Tourism Australia’s regional general manager for South Asia, South East Asia and the Gulf (pictured below), revealed that Singapore Airlines and Silkair have plans to make Singapore a hub for Indian flights.

It is estimated that an extra 345,000 seats will be required to meet the expected demand from India. The minister is confident that this would be possible within the plan’s target timeline.

Tourism Australia opened an office in Mumbai in 2008. It rolled out a local campaign, “Namaste Australia” In 2010-2011  to encourage positive consumer advocacy of Australia.

Delhi and Mumbai will be the plan’s focus, and strategies will be developed in the next five years to develop new products and provide new experiences for the Indian travellers.

“The current marketing campaign, ‘Nothing like Australia’ will lift the country’s profile and build support in India, It will be rolled out in India in the latter part of this year,” said Ferguson.

McEvoy does not think the high value of the Australian dollar against the Indian rupee will work against the plan. This is because the target are the affluent and mid life customers like entrepreneurs, professionals and senior executive in multi-national companies.

He is confident that with “over 70 NTOs active in India, the time is right for Tourism Australia to invest more (in India) to both maintain our presence and enable our industry to better leverage a future competitive advantage.”

The plan will also be supported in the coming years under the A$61 million Asia Marketing Fund set aside for the first time in the 2012 national budget. Funding will be doubled in 2013.

“This plan will help Australian operators understand the market better, particularly identifying where the best opportunities for growth are, both now and into the future and will be instrumental in growing both arrivals and value to Australia,” said Ferguson.

The minister said the current concentration in both China and India would not be at the expense of other markets. “We’re not forgetting our friends like UK, Europe, Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan. All markets are important to us.”

He cited the strong comeback of Indonesia and Japan, the former with a 13.2% growth  last year and the latter revitalised, growing positively and expected to come back with a big bang.

With a leaner and meaner Tourism Australia than it was five or six years ago, the NTO will continue to develop these markets through various measures.

Francess-Anne Keeler, Tourism Australia’s executive general manager international. said these would include marketing partnerships with Singapore Airlines and SilkAir as well as leveraging on social media.

Indian buyers that WIT talked to hailed the plan as a good move and they feel that the target for 2020 is very achievable.

Sunila Patil, director of Strawberi Holidays in Mumbai said that’s about 100 agents sending about 100 pax per year to Australia. “At this rate, the target could be achieved in five years.”

Veneeta Rawat, director of Mumbai-based Amazing Vacations shared the same optimisim despite the strong Aussie dollar.

“They will still travel, whether it’s to Australia or another destination. They just cut down on other travel components like staying in a lower star hotel than a five star. The potentail for outbound traffic to Australia is good.”

Pictured: Sunila Patil (right) and Veneeta Rawat

However both agreed the main stumbling block is the lack of direct flights, as wel as insufficent flights. AirAsia X terminated its Kuala Lumpur-New Delhi and Kuala Lumpur -Mumbai service, and Qantas on May 4 also axed its Mumbai-Singapore-Brisbane service.

At a glance: The India Strategic Plan targets