Tourism Australia today announced the launch of its ‘Virtual Travel Fair’, a bi-yearly travel sale that gives Indian travellers an opportunity to grab attractive deals on holidays to Australia. What started off as an airline sale, in its sixth and current version has grown into taking leading tourism attractions and experiences across Australia into its fold, ensuring that in addition to unbeatable airfares, travellers receive competitive prices on holiday packages. The announcement comes off the back of Tourism Australia’s latest campaign ‘Experience the game and beyond’, targeting passionate Indian cricket fans and giving them an opportunity to be a part of the ICC T20 World Cup along with an unparalleled holiday experience in Australia.

As part of the sale, Tourism Australia has partnered with seven major airlines including Air India, Cathay Pacific, China Southern Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, SriLankan Airlines, and Thai Airways to offer fares starting from just Rs. 40,000*. The sale is valid from 14 November to 13 December 2019 with a travel validity of up to December 2020. Additionally, tourism products ranging from hotels and car rental agencies to adventure and leisure experiences have come on board to extend unmatched discounts, which can be accessed through Tourism Australia’s Aussie Specialist Agents, Key Distribution Partners and leading online travel agents like MakeMyTrip, GoIbibo, Yatra and Cleartrip.

Promoted across various digital platforms; this one-of-its-kind, industry-first initiative is a win-win for all, with Australia recording a tremendous growth in visitation, partner airlines and tourism products registering increased bookings and more importantly, travellers getting access to great deals. The previous versions have recorded over 87,000 bookings for partner airlines.

Commenting on the sale, Mr. Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager, India and Gulf, Tourism Australia said, “We are always exploring avenues to keep offering value for money holiday experiences to our Indian travellers. We are proud to collaborate with seven leading airlines, our key distribution partners and the Australian tourism Industry to provide this opportunity to Indian travellers. The response to the previous versions of the sale event has been phenomenal, and we are confident of repeating this success given that 2020 is a power packed year of cricket in Australia.”

In December 2017, Australia achieved its Tourism 2020 strategic goal of over 300,000 arrivals from India, three years ahead of target. India is currently the 8th largest inbound market for Australia, with total arrivals for the year ended (YE) September 2019 at 386,400, an increase of 12 per cent relative to the same period of the previous year. For year ended June 2019, Indian visitors spent A$ 1.8 billion (approx. Rs. 8,800 crores) on their Australian trips, an increase of 17 per cent over the previous year. India is the 6th largest source market in terms of expenditure for Australia, and currently is the fastest growing inbound market with five consecutive years of double-digit growth.