India being a priority tourism market for Western Australia with a total of 34,000 visitors arriving in WA in March 2024, this campaign is set to encourage Indian visitors to explore Western Australia’s capital and its surroundings
The Australian cricket legend Adam Gilchrist and his son Harry are the faces of a new campaign promoting day road trips from Perth to Indian tourism market. The campaign features the former cricketer and his son exploring a range of attractions in and around the outskirts of Perth.
Their adventures have been compiled into videos and photos for Indian social media and Cricbuzz, one of the most popular mobile apps for cricket news and scores with over 50 million users and monthly traffic of nearly 400 million.
The campaign will be featured on large billboards in Mumbai and Delhi, and direct prospective Indian visitors to accommodation, tourism experiences and partner deals with Indian travel agencies like Thomas Cook and Skyscanner, which will offer packages to Perth.
During the campaign, the pair experienced four-wheel-driving and sandboarding in Lancelin, went stargazing in the Pinnacles, visited wineries in the Swan Valley, enjoyed a dolphin boat cruise in Rockingham and completed the Vertigo rooftop experience at Optus Stadium.
Notably, India is a priority tourism market for Western Australia with a total of 34,000 visitors arriving in WA and spending $128 million in year ending March 2024.
India has leapt to become Western Australia’s seventh largest market from 11th largest in 2019, with the accelerated growth indicating surging demand from Indian visitors, driven by a large Indian community in WA of approximately 61,000 residents, including around 9,600 international students.
The campaign aligns perfectly with the opening cricket test of the summer series – The West Test between Australia and India at Optus Stadium from 22 November 2024. The test match is hotly anticipated as it will be the first time the two nations have played since the World Test Championship Final that was in June 2023.
The new India campaign is a market-specific iteration of the successful global road trips campaign ‘Drive the Dream’, which was launched in September 2023 and featured Perth-born Formula 1 star Daniel Ricciardo exploring Australia’s Coral Coast with his best mate. The campaign has reached over 136 million people.
Both iterations of the Drive the Dream campaign align with the state’s highly acclaimed destination brand, Walking On A Dream.
It follows the recent release of figures from Tourism Australia, which showed WA outperformed all other states in total visitor spend compared to 2019, with a record $17.9 billion spend by travellers in the year ending March 2024.
The Tourism Minister Rita Saffioti stated, “India is certainly a priority tourism market for us, and our strong and proud Indian community in WA has no doubt had a big influence on the fast-increasing visitor numbers, with people coming to visit family and friends in WA.”
She further added, “We’re hoping this campaign will encourage those people in India to come out to WA to visit relatives or grab some mates and book their tickets to The West Test in November, and then go on to enjoy the easily accessible day trips Adam and his son Harry enjoyed.This campaign, along with other iterations of Drive the Dream with Daniel Ricciardo and our overarching Walking On A Dream brand, play a really important role in revitalising our visitor economy and putting WA on the map as a sought-after tourism destination.”
Gilchrist said, “It was a privilege to partner with Tourism WA and showcase this great state and how accessible some of the beautiful experiences are just out of Perth. I hope people in India see Drive the Dream journey and not only want to come and join the cricket festivities but learn more about our city and Western Australia while they are here.”
