India, one of Victorias fastest-growing inbound markets

Victoria is estimated to receive 127,500 overnight visitors from India within a decade

 

The State of Victoria’s latest International Visitor Survey results for the year ending December 2012 depicts India as one of Victoria’s fastest-growing inbound tourism markets, attracting 71,600 Indian visitors in 2012, an increase of 16.4 per cent over the previous 12 months.

During the year 2012, Indian visitors spent $217 million in the State, giving Victoria for the first time the largest share of Indian visitor numbers and expenditure of any state in Australia. Within a decade, it is estimated Victoria will enjoy around 127,500 visitors from India annually, spending over half a billion dollars, second only to China.

 

Melanie de Souza, General Manager, International Marketing, Tourism Victoria says,”The Victorian State government's tourism body, Tourism Victoria has long seen the potential of the Indian market with a dedicated representative office based in Mumbai since 2007. Tourism Victoria undertakes a range of marketing activities to establish the Melbourne and Victoria brand in India and to ensure that the state attracts increasing numbers of Indian visitors.”

 

Tourism Victoria’s innovative Melbourne NOW! Social media campaign reached over 5 million Indians and generated over 140 potential new itineraries for Indian visitors to Victoria.The Melbourne NOW! Campaign was the first Australian state tourism campaign to focus on Indian cities beyond Mumbai and Delhi and support for it has been extremely strong across India.

 

The campaign saw new, innovative and creative itineraries for visitors to Victoria submitted from 71 agents across India. A selection of these new and innovative itineraries was then exposed to Indian travellers through a Facebook competition at the end of 2012 to find the 15 most popular ones. They were viewed by over 5 million Indians, over 12,000 entered the competition and Victoria’s Facebook page gained more than 200,000 very active new fans.

 

The itineraries broke new ground in the Indian travel landscape - moving Melbourne and Victoria from a one to two night stay to being a core component of every Australian holiday. These itineraries introduced many new and exciting tourism experiences to the Indian market such as horse drawn carriage rides, Melbourne River Cruises and Harley Davidson tours and overnight stays in locations like the Great Ocean Road, Ballarat, the Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island.

 

Media Contact:

Atul Malikram@9827092823