Karnataka third largest Indian market for Oz tourism despite no direct flights

Thursday, September 12, 2019

In 2018-19 over 35,800 tourists travelled from Karnataka to Australia, thus making it the third largest Indian market for inbound tourism, after Maharashtra and New Delhi. Karnataka is followed by Punjab and Tamil Nadu in terms of the number of people who visited the southern country last year.

Over 3.7 lakh people travelled between India and Australia in 2018-19 and the number is expected to touch half a million by 2020 and one million by 2025, say officials of Tourism Australia. With an 11% growth in inbound travel in 2018-19 as compared to 2017-18, India has emerged as the fastest growing market for inbound tourism in Australia for the second year in a row. In June 2019, over 34,300 visitors travelled between India and Australia — a 17.5% increase from June 2018.

“India, today, is the eighth largest inbound market for tourist arrivals in Australia and the sixth largest in terms of spend. Australia, in 2020, is gearing up to welcome cricket enthusiasts from around the world to the ICC T20 World Cup for both men and women, which will be held across eight cities. With India being a cricket-loving nation, we are undertaking a number of initiatives to manage the expected increase in visitors,” said Nishant Kashikar, country manager, India and Gulf, Tourism Australia.

Australia in talks for more direct flight links with India
Despite Karnataka being the third largest market for Australia’s inbound tourism, the state capital of Bengaluru still doesn’t have direct flight connectivity with any city Down Under.
Australian tourism officials said they are currently in talks with several airlines, including private carrier Vistara, which announced earlier this year that it was looking to establish a codeshare to introduce flights to Australia from India, Indigo and SpiceJet.

Currently, only Air India operates a daily direct flight between Delhi-Sydney (five times a week) and Delhi-Melbourne (thrice a week), while all other flights available are one-stop ones.

Eight one-stop services are being offered by various airlines between Bengaluru and Australia, Nishant Kashikar, country manager, India and Gulf, Tourism Australia, pointed out. He said they’re in talks with all local airports in India and Australia to have more direct flights.

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