Record Indian Travel Trade participation at ATE 15 in Melbourne

The Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) 2015 recently concluded in Melbourne with 25 companies representing India at ATE 2015.

The euphoria amongst the Indian travel fraternity around increasing visitor numbers to Australia was demonstrated by a record number of Indian participants at the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) 2015, which recently concluded in Melbourne. A total of 25 companies including Thomas Cook India, SOTC-Kuoni, MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Abercrombie & Kent, Chariot World Tours, Fountainhead, amongst others represented India at ATE 2015, in a bid to further promote Australia as a travel destination.

Organized by Tourism Australia, with Tourism Victoria, ATE is Australia’s annual business-to-business tourism travel trade event, which brings together travel wholesalers and agents from 30 countries to meet and do business with 1,500 Australian tourism seller delegates from 500 companies. In addition to fixed business appointments, ATE offered participating delegates the opportunity to be part of a selection of familiarisation programs to deepen their experience and understanding of the destination.

Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager India & Gulf, Tourism Australia, “The relationships developed at ATE, between Australian tourism product suppliers and the travel trade who sell Australian holidays in India, are essential for creating long term tourism growth. Arrivals into Australia from India have seen a significant rise and initiatives like the ATE provide a wonderful platform for the trade to understand the destination better which in turn helps them to sell it to their consumers.”

India has seen a fantastic increase in visitor arrival numbers to Australia in the recent past. For the calendar year 2014, there were 197,000 visitors from India, an increase of 17% over the same period of the previous year.

Tourism Australia is the Australian Government agency responsible for promoting Australia to the world as a destination for business and leisure travel.

Tourism Australia’s purpose is to increase the economic benefits to Australia of tourism, supporting the industry’s Tourism 2020 strategy, which aims to grow the overnight annual expenditure generated by tourism to as much as A$140 billion by 2020.