Indian visitors to Australia rocket
While tourists from South Korea, Japan and some other Asian nations are spurning visiting Australia in favour of other destinations, Tourism Australia says that Indians are have now become Australia’s fastest-growing tourism market.
The figures from Tourism Australia show Japanese holidaymakers no longer view Australia as a must see destination and in five months to the end of May 2006, Japanese visitors were down 4% over the same period last year, following on from a 4% decline from 2004 to 2005.
104,800 South Koreans, the next in market size for Australia from Asia after Japan, visited Australia in the same period, down 7%.
In addition, visitors from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan also declined sharply.
While China showed modest growth, it was India that rocketed up 31% to 36,500 visitors.
India is now Australia’s 10th-biggest tourist market in 2006, while in 2003 it was the 20th biggest, with Australia now benefiting from the rapid growth of India’s affluent middle class.
The Mole recalls an amazing stat from a recent visit to India that a million new mobile phones are connected every month!
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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