Tourism Australia is celebrating the year 2017 as 50 years of promoting the destination across the globe. To mark the event, Tourism Australia along with Tourism & Events Queensland presented their tourism programme for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games for the Indian market in Mumbai in the presence of former Olympic and Commonwealth Gold Medalist, Abhinav Bindra along with John O’Sullivan, Managing Director, Tourism Australia, Leanne Coddington, CEO, Tourism & Events Queensland and Raghav Gupta, Founder & CEO, Fanatic Sports. Gold Coast, Queensland is the host city for the 2018 Commonwealth Games scheduled to be held from April 4 to 15.

According to O’Sullivan, Tourism Australia is proud to have reached its 50 year milestone and working in partnership with the travel industry to grow tourism to Australia. Talking about the growth of the India market, he added, “Our global consumer campaigns such as ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’, ‘Aquatic and Coastal’ and ‘Restaurant Australia’ continue to showcase some of the best attractions and experiences Australia has on offer for travellers. India is currently the eighth largest inbound market for Australia, and is expected to be within the top five markets by 2025, with around 500,000 Indian visitors annually. The increasing visitor numbers from India confirms that we are well placed to achieve our long-term Tourism 2020 targets for arrivals and out of region market share for India, well ahead of time.”

Coddington said, “More than 57,000 Indian travellers visited Queensland in the year ending March 2017 and we know many more will come to our state next year for the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. From the Great Barrier Reef, to the Outback, to the world-heritage listed Fraser Island and other offerings, we encourage everyone at next year’s Commonwealth Games to stay on in Queensland.”

Tourism Australia has seen international tourism to Australia grow from 220,000 international visitors spending around AUD 74 million in 1967 to welcoming more than eight million international visitors with AUD 39 billion in expenditure in the past year. For the year ended March 2017, total visitor spend (including domestic and international) reached AUD 102 billion, up 5.8% on the previous year. Total overnight spend continued tracking 4% above the shared Australian Tourism 2020 goal of achieving AUD 115 billion in overnight visitor spend annually by the end of the decade. For the year-ended May 2017, Australia welcomed 274,500 visitors from India, 15.3% more than the previous year, and is set to achieve a fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth from India. For May 2017, Australia welcomed 31,000 visitors, recording the highest ever number of visitors in any given month from India.