Millions of Indians will tune into the Australia-India Test series that began last week – and Australia wants to take full advantage of those viewers as tourism from China lags.

A special instalment of Tourism Australia’s Come and Say G’day campaign will run on TV screens across India throughout the five-Test series between the two countries, which began in Perth on Friday, in the hope that Indian tourists can replace Chinese travellers.

With up to 50 million Indian cricket fans expected to watch the action, Australian Test cricket captain Pat Cummins stars alongside brand ambassador Ruby the Kangaroo to show off the experiences Australia offers outside of its stadiums.

This comes a week after Tourism Australia released a content series in India featuring recently retired Australian cricketer David Warner.

Just not cricket

Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison said India had long been a key market for Australian tourism, and the Test series presented the perfect opportunity to ramp up activity in the market.

“The Test series will attract enormous TV audiences of up to 50 million across India and tens of millions of those are high-yielding travellers who are in the market for an international holiday.” Harrison said.

“While we have their attention firmly on Australia for the cricket this is an unmissable chance to encourage those travellers to visit Australia and see what we have to offer as a holiday destination.

“The aviation links between India and Australia have never been stronger. The market was one of the first to fully recover after the pandemic and, according to forecasts, the number of Indians travelling to Australia will double 2019 levels by 2028.”

Growing market

India ranks fifth in Australia’s top international visitor markets, with 395,000 trips recorded in the year to June – a 13 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2019 according to Tourism Research Australia.

Although Australia received more tourists from New Zealand, China, the US and the UK, none have reached pre-pandemic numbers, let alone exceeded them.

By 2028, arrivals from India are expected to reach 646,800.

University of Technology Sydney adjunct fellow in tourism David Beirman told The New Daily choosing to target Indians with ads during the Test series, especially featuring a star like Cummins, was a great idea given the country’s love of cricket.

He said the move also comes off the back of Australia spending the past few years trying to develop bigger tourist source markets outside of China.

Priorities switch

Despite China having long been one of Australia’s biggest sources of tourists, the past few years have seen a significant downturn due to issues stemming from politics, trade, Covid restrictions and the ensuing rise of anti-China sentiment.

Although the relationship between the countries recently thawed, Chinese visitors accounted for 746,000 trips to Australia in the year to June – just over half of 2019 levels.

“China, it was the first place to have Covid, and one of the last countries in the world to actually stop travel restrictions in relation to Covid,” Beirman said.

“[Australia] had to try and find somewhere else … India’s got the advantage of obviously a huge population, a growing number of people who can afford to travel, and … a lot more direct air routes [developed over recent years].

“And of course, cricket is a terrific vehicle, because it’s something that the two countries have in common. ”

The return of Chinese tourists may continue to be slow given, like Australians, many Chinese people have become increasingly interested in domestic travel since the pandemic.

When not exploring their own country, Beirman said Chinese tourists were also being enticed by destinations closer to home in South-East Asia.