It is hard to miss the barrage of
marketing stunts unleashed to transport planeloads of Indians to Australia. Not
a day passes by without a half-page or full-page advert making an appearance in
newspapers, promoting Australia as the go-to tourist destination.
There is hardly a commercial break
on television without, well, a commercial showcasing the splendid sights of the
country. If you happen to be a fan of Masterchef Australia, the reality TV
contest about food, wine and chefs, you again cannot escape Australia. And
there is more on the way.
The saasbahu TV fan will soon see
more of Australia because a few episodes of a couple of soaps have been shot in
the country. A romantic song of a Bollywood movie filmed in Australia will soon
be beamed as an ad. These are the in-your-face campaigns launched by Tourism
Australia, the government agency responsible for attracting international
visitors.
There is also a behind-the-scenes,
so to speak, marketing drive to propel Australia into the mainstream
consciousness of Indians. The agency recently organised in a trade event in
Goa, where delegates from the Australian tourism industry met India's top 100
travel agents to showcase Australia's attractiveness as a quality tourist
destination.
Meanwhile, carriers such as
Singapore Airlines, SilkAir, Malaysia Airlines and our own Air India are
aggressively coaxing customers to fly to Australia. All these efforts are part
of an integrated marketing campaign across the media — advertising, PR
programmes, trade shows, consumer promotions, online communication and consumer
research — that Tourism Australia launched under the banner of a campaign
called 2020 India Strategic Plan. The campaign has drawn up an exhaustive
strategy to increase the arrivals from India at a compounded annual growth rate
of 7.2% over the next eight years.
More importantly, spending by
Indians — now this is what really matters to the Aussies — is on pace to grow
at 12% year on year. Indeed, the Indian traveller's contribution to the Australian
economy, when they check into hotels, go on sightseeing, participate in
adventure sports and fly internally, has the potential to grow to up to A$2.3
billion from the current A$804 million by the end of this decade.
Huge Buildup
The confluence of all the marketing
acts is already bearing fruit. Nishant Kashikar, manager, India, Tourism
Australia, says leisure arrivals from India have increased by 16% for the year
ended June 2013 from a year ago since the launch of the 2020 campaign. He is
even more pleased to see that spending by Indians travelling on holiday has
risen by nearly 60% in this period. "These numbers are very encouraging
given the [bleak] economic situation," he says. That is partly because the
number of India-born Australian citizens has doubled over past five years,
which helps build the so-called visiting friends and relatives (VFR) segment.
The "repeat travel" to
Australia from India is as high as 50%. Madhavan Menon, managing director,
Thomas Cook (India) Ltd, says travel has clearly become an intrinsic part of
the Indian consumer calendar. "And with the latent potential of 50 million
outbound travellers by 2020, India is an opportunity that tourism boards like
Australia's have been quick to seize," he says.
Other factors too have made
Kashikar's job easy. Over the past four years, the bilateral relations between
the two countries have improved significantly. Trade — nearly 100 Indian
companies such as GMR, Adani, Mahindra & Mahindra and Infosys are present
in Australia — has helped drive business traffic.
Recently, 4,000 members of Amway
India travelled to Melbourne for the direct selling company's annual leadership
summit. Likewise, Australia's attractiveness as a destination for education
(the attacks on Indian students are now a distant memory) has also increased.
So much so that Tourism Australia hasn't felt the impact of the slowdown on
arrivals from India. Leisure arrivals rose by 14% while overall arrivals were
up by 8% in July from a year ago, according to the latest figures available.
For this, the Aussies have to thank
the depreciation of the Australian dollar against the US dollar, reversing the
trend of previous years. The currency has remained relatively stable against
the rupee as well. The Australian dollar translates into 54-58 rupees, hovering
at this rate for six months. Kashikar says this is not cheap, but adds that the
currency has remained relatively stable.
"These are things working in
Australia's favour at this point of time." Thomas Cook's Menon says
Australia has emerged as a strong destination for his company this season.
"Our product teams have leveraged upswings in the rupee against the
Australian dollar," he says.
Australia has also found support
from unexpected quarters. About three weeks ago, Air India launched daily
non-stop (12-hour) flights from New Delhi to Sydney and Melbourne. Tourists
apart, the direct connectivity coupled with increased capacity — 256 seats a
day which eventually translate into 93,400 annually — is also an incentive for
business travellers. Mohit Sardana, director, outbound product development, at
online travel company Makemytrip, says the direct flight is a gamechanger
because previously airfares were expensive. Travellers had little choice but
book connecting flights to Australia from Singapore and Hong Kong.
Vacationers typically pay Rs 40,000-50,000 to catch a flight to Europe compared with around Rs 70,000 to Australia. Air India had launched an introductory airfare of around Rs 40,000 to Australia to coax travellers though there is bound to be a spike in fares in the run-up to the peak travel season.
For a traveller, it helps that
getting an Australian visa is easy. The Australian government has launched a
programme called Preferred Agency Scheme for easier facilitation of visas
(within a week) by shortlisted travel agents in India. The top 25 travel agents
have also been entrusted with an e-visa facility so that clients get visas
within a day.
Binge Traveller
Delightful results as these are,
Australia is still not a patch on Europe, Southeast Asia and the US in terms of
the number of Indian arrivals. Sardana says from the perspective of pure
numbers, Australia is still a small destination. The number of Indians whose
travel to Australia that Makemytrip facilitates is about 30% of the total
number of Indians flocking to Europe.
Globally, Australia is ranked 42 in
terms of total tourist arrivals. Even the number of Indian visitors pales in
comparison to the Chinese — 685,000 Chinese compared with around 1,60,000
Indian tourists. But turn to spending patterns, it becomes a totally different
ballgame.
Australia is one of the
fastest-growing destinations in the world, ranked No 8 in terms of total
tourist receipts. This dichotomy in arrivals and spending is visible in the
case of India too. Arrivals from India are expected to grow at 7-8%, but their
expenditure will increase at a faster clip of 12% in the next eight years.
Kashikar says these are remarkable
statistics given that time, costs and distance are travel barriers for
Australia. "It is not a shorthaul destination. One needs to plan much in
advance and then ensure everyone in the family has accumulated leaves
together," he says. Due to the travel constraints, Australia can never
hope to accumulate huge volumes like Europe.
The Aussies are not complaining
though. They are happy that their country is a high-yield destination in that
the traveller contributes significantly to the economy. The reason is simple.
Australia is vast and diverse — it has something to offer for the nightlife
lover and the nature fan — drawing an eclectic mix of travellers. Every city
can lay claim to be a destination on its own right. The country offers a mix of
wildlife sanctuaries and serpentine coastlines.
Sujata Modi, a freelance writer from
Mumbai, has this to say about her trip to Australia. "Locations like
Kangaroo Island simply blow you away. With its sheer virgin seascapes, sparcely
populated and unpolluted expanses of land, mammoth natural rock formations and
animal exoticism, it is a land untouched and untarnished. I had gone for the
kangaroos and koalas and instead of just watching them sit on my bed's headrest
in their stuffed creations, I got to really feel, touch, smell, hold, cuddle
real ones. I was witness to a seal fight. Wallabies ate out of our hands; we
fed hoards of pelicans with fish in the cold of the evening and then watched
little penguins cross the sands in the dark of the night."
Aloke Bajpai, co-founder and CEO of
Ixigo, an online and mobile travel search engine, says the diversity of
Australia is a huge draw for Indians. As is the vastness. A tourist who travels
such a distance would want to visit at least 3-4 cities. Even then they would
have left a large stretches untouched. Farzana Suri, an advertising
professional based in Mumbai, says even two weeks are too short for visiting
Australia. "You cannot do justice. I'll definitely go again a year
later." Australia is also a shining example of Indians turning lavish
during travel. "Indians who haggle with their vegetable vendors have no
problem spending overseas," says Bajpai. It should not surprise that
Indians outspend the Chinese.
Kashikar says many Indians are
travelling and staying for much longer in Australia, prolonging their travel
from a week to at least two weeks. They are not only visiting traditional
gateway cities such as Sydney and Melbourne but also the surrounds and new
destinations, he says. Examples: Hayman Island, Lizard Island, Great Ocean
Road, Wolgan Valley, Kangaroo Island and the like. A person who makes it to
Australia is an evolved traveller, according to Kashikar.
"They would not just like to
take a photograph against iconic landmarks, but also take in the local culture.
So it is not just taking a photo outside the Sydney opera house but watching a
performance at the opera house. It is not just taking a walk on the Bondi
Beach, but participating in a surfing lesson there."
A constant traveller like Suri says
she visited Australia for a difference experience. "With Europe, if you've
seen one place, you've seen every other. Not so with Australia. The place holds
a natural beauty that you cannot experience anywhere else," she says.
That's not to say there are no honeymooners and family travellers making a
beeline for Australia.
Even honeymooners participate in
activities like scuba diving, snorkelling and surfing. Neha Sharma, a media
professional from Mumbai, did just that. She took to bungee diving, hopped on
to a sea plane, did some sky diving and surfed during her visit last December.
"I woke up at 5.30 every morning so as not to miss any activity," she
says. Kashikar says while travelling to Australia, one switches on. For once,
he wasn't talking about spending.
