Sydney and regional NSW are set for an influx of Indian visitors thanks to the NSW Government’s 2018 focus on India workshop which aims to encourage more Indian travellers to book a trip to Australia’s premier tourism and events state.
Minister for Tourism and Major Events Adam Marshall said while Chinese visitor numbers continue to dominate headlines, the NSW Government is working hard behind the scenes to grow visitation from other overseas markets, which have enormous untapped potential, like India.
Marshall said, “India has been our state’s fastest growing inbound tourism market for the past five years and it shows no sign of slowing. With the size of India’s middle class rapidly expanding and Indian millennials seeking to travel more than previous generations, the market presents a lucrative opportunity for our tourism industry. The 2018 Focus On India workshop, is all about tapping into this market and putting NSW in the global spotlight by inviting 30 key India-based travel agents to NSW to meet one-on-one with some of our best export-ready tourism businesses.”
Marshall added that over the past five years, the number of Indian visitors to NSW has grown by 120 per cent while visitor expenditure nearly doubled.
He further said, “There’s no denying that our hard work is paying dividends – the results from the latest International Visitor Survey show that NSW received the highest number of Indian visitors on record in the year ending December 2017, which contributed US$337 million in visitor expenditure to NSW. We will continue to focus on the dispersal of international tourists beyond the fringes of Sydney and into rural and regional NSW so that local communities reap the benefits of tourist dollars being spent all over town.”
