At the event, more than 2000 travel industry delegates have been gathered under one sky out of which there were around 650 buyer delegates representing travel wholesalers and retailers from 30 countries, covering the Americas, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom and Asia-Pacific. The event was organised by Tourism Australia in partnership with host-state partner, Tourism Western Australia.
India’s presence in the event was prioritized and the country received a big attention from Australian states and regional tourism agencies and various tourism product suppliers since it is presumed as a market with enormous growth potential. Unlike China, Australia considers India as a large market for its tourism sector.
Tourism Australia Managing Director John O’Sullivan at the press conference said, “While China today stands as the number one market, India emerges as the fasted growing one.”
Here in this context it is worth mentioning that, Australia ranks tourism in fourth place for business with India and expects the number of Indian visitors will grow upto 1.2 million by 2035. A high-level policy document – ‘India Economic Strategy to 2035’ can be reffered regarding this, which has been issued by the Australia Government recently.
The next edition of this prestigious ATE event has been announced to be held at Melbourne from 10 to 14 May 2020 and this time’s venue will be the Convention and Exhibition Centre of the Victorian capital city. This will be the ninth time that ATE to be staged in Melbourne.
Hoping the upcoming event to provide a significant platform for Australian tourism operators to sell their world-class offerings to global travel buyers, John O’Sullivan said, “It is quite exciting that ATE will be making a return to Melbourne in 2020. The event will see tourism buyers from more than 30 countries descending on the city for four days of face-to-face meetings with key Australian tourism operators, networking opportunities and educational facilities.”