India—Record number of visitors supports Australia’s tourism industry

India is one of Australia’s fastest-growing source markets for tourism. Indian visitors (aged 15 and over) increased 15% to 342,700 people in the year ending March 2019 (Chart). China remains the largest source market for visitors (1.3 million people aged 15 and over), but growth is much slower (2.6%). Indian visitors spent a total $1.7bn, with an average spend of $4,933 per trip. Indian visitors spend less per trip than the average international visitor, partly due to the number of nights spent staying with relatives.

Most tourists from India are visiting friends or relatives when they come to Australia (53%)—higher than the average (30%) across all international visitors. Peter Varghese’s India Economic Strategy estimates 70 million Indians will travel overseas annually by 2035, which could result in 1.2 million Indian visitors to Australia, worth up to $9b to the Australian economy each year.

The strength of the Indian economy is supporting the surge of tourists heading to Australia. Home to 1.35 billion people and boasting impressive GDP growth rates, India is one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies, the sixth-largest economy in the world, and Australia’s fifth-largest trading partner.