Tourism Queensland recently concluded its annual travel trade roadshow ‘Queensland on Tour’ in Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai. The event offered an opportunity for the 22 delegates from the travel and hospitality sectors of Queensland to connect with the Indian travel trade representatives in these cities. Speaking on the sidelines of the Mumbai roadshow, Paul Buggy, International Director – Korea, India and Middle East International, Tourism Queensland, stated that the Indian footfall to the destination has grown 15 per cent as of June 2012. “India is still an emerging but rapidly growing source market for us. We aim to witness a 20 per cent growth in Indian footfall by the same time next year. Delhi and Mumbai still remain our main markets, although we will target tier II cities as well through our wholesale partners as we lack the budget to directly interact with those markets,” he revealed.
Speaking about their marketing efforts, Buggy said that Queensland will be featured well in Tourism Australia’s upcoming media campaign. In addition, the destination has a dedicated India website up and running to provide the agents and customers with messages and updates from Tourism Queensland. “Our plan for 2013, as far as the India market is concerned, is to engage more with the trade, build relationships with airlines, increase our PR exposure and develop online campaigns for India, especially across the social networking platform. We will also organise familiarisation trips for the media and agents,” added Buggy.
The focus segments for the destination include travellers between the ages of 25 and 50, families, honeymooners, Double Income No Kids (DINK) and MICE. Repeat visitors, Buggy opined, will want to explore individual destinations in Australia, and Queensland may benefit from that. He further stated that the lack of direct flights has been a barrier to further growth in India numbers, a problem that he hopes will be overcome with the proposed Delhi-Sydney-Melbourne flight by Air India, expected to be launch early next year.
The delegation for this year included O’reilley’s Rainforest Retreat; Kingfisher Bay Resort – Fraser Island; Cairns Tropical Zoo; TOGA Hospitality; Marriott Hotels International; Experience Tours Australia; Qantas Holidays; Singapore Airlines; Malaysia Airlines; Qantas; Gold Coast Tourism, Village Roadshow Themeparks, Dreamworld & Skypoint Deck, Paradise Jetboating, Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, Whales in Paradise, Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort, Australia Zoo, Big Cat Reef Cruises, International Coaches Cairns, Hotair Cairns & Gold Coast, & Hamilton Island.
Lidia Latimer, Manager – International Marketing (Asia and Middle East), Gold Coast Tourism Corporation, said that the destination is now promoting lesser known regions to the Indian market, including its rainforest areas and the Broadbeach region. “So far, Indian family business has gone up by two-thirds at Broadbeach and we feel the need to create awareness to further increase these numbers. Our aim for next year is to increase length of stay in the Gold Coast region,” she sated.
Sharon Livingston, Director of Sales and Marketing, Big Cat Green Island Reef Cruises, revealed that the company has witnessed a trend in the Indian travellers with the youth partaking in water sports around the reefs at the Cairns, which has encouraged the company to further push these experiences in the market here.
