Kangaroos jump on the tourist bandwagon

bangalore: as indians realise the value of proximity in choosing tourist destinations, the aggressive promotions and marketing route successfully adopted by countries like dubai and singapore is now being followed by australia as well. the australian tourist commission has set an ambitious target of 105,000 indian tourists by 2005 and seems to be slowly getting there, with 41,000 indian arrivals recorded in 2000.while this number seems small given that the total tourists to australia for 2000 stood at 4.9 million, maggie white, general manager (south and south-east asia), australian tourist commission (atc), told the times of india that the number of indian tourists has been showing 15 per cent growth for the past five years, with 2000 showing a 20 per cent increase over 1999. predictably, the spate of hindi blockbusters which have been shot in australia have kindled an interest among indians and the atc has decided to target the sec a demographic category with a series of promotions including media campaigns. ``we are exploring celebrity endorsements to promote australia,'''' she said. interestingly, another reason for the atc''s strong india focus is that indian tourists are the third-highest spenders in australia, trailing only chinese and indonesian visitors, as per june 2000 statistics. the average indian adult spends aud 3034 when in australia, while american tourists rank 10th on the list. post-september 11, the atc expects regions in south-east asia and australia to be the biggest beneficiaries. while on the consumer level, the atc has entered into a tie-up with singapore airlines for `the great aussie strike it lucky promotion,'' on till april 23 and entitles all travellers from singapore visiting australia to participate in a lucky draw with tickets to australia being the prize, on the travel agents'' front, the aussie specialists programme was launched recently. white said it is the first online programme offered by a national tourism organisation in india and is working towards training 100 agency staff to become australia experts by 2002-end and assist in promoting the country.