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With Sara Tendulkar onboard, Tourism Australia eyes half a million Indian visitors a year
Tourism Australia is deploying a culturally nuanced iteration of its global “Come and Say G’day” campaign in the Indian market, featuring entrepreneur and philanthropist Sara Tendulkar alongside the brand’s animated ambassador Ruby the Souvenir Kangaroo. The campaign launch comes as the organisation reports significant growth in Indian visitor arrivals and expenditures.
Nishant Kashikar, country manager for India and the Gulf at Tourism Australia, reveals that the organisation has achieved considerable momentum in the Indian market, positioning it as one of its fastest-growing inbound markets.
“We crossed 450,000 visitor arrivals for the year in June. That was almost 8% over the previous year,” Kashikar says, highlighting the performance metrics driving the campaign strategy.
Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager, India & Gulf, Tourism Australia
The financial impact proves equally compelling, with Indian tourist expenditure reaching nearly $2.7 billion, representing a 14% increase year-on-year. Perhaps more significantly for tourism economics, Indian visitors extended their stays substantially, contributing 29 million nights in Australia, a 21% increase compared to the previous year, as per Kashikar.
Strategic brand ambassador selection
The decision to partner with Sara Tendulkar reflects Tourism Australia’s shift towards advocacy-driven marketing initiatives. Kashikar explains the selection criteria: “Sara has been visiting Australia ever since she was a kid, over the past couple of decades, and therefore, as a result of the trip, she’s developed that natural affinity and an emotional connect with Australia.”
Sara Tendulkar near Sydney Opera House
The brand ambassador selection process evaluated multiple factors, including reach, relevance, resonance, reputation, and relationship development.
Kashikar emphasises that Tendulkar’s persona aligns with Australian characteristics: “She comes across as extremely warm, welcoming and inviting, and is an extremely humble and gracious person. The attributes that we find in a typical Australian.”
How Tourism Australia measures success
Tourism Australia operates a comprehensive KPI structure encompassing strategic, consumer demand, and campaign-specific metrics. The strategic KPIs focus on visitor arrivals growth and expenditure increases, measured quarterly through research partnerships and immigration statistics.
Consumer demand metrics evaluate Australia’s position within traveller consideration sets, measuring awareness, intention, and booking behaviour. The framework assesses Australia’s performance across key decision-making factors, including safety, security, coastal experiences, nature and wildlife, food and wine offerings, infrastructure quality, and accessibility.
Campaign-level metrics encompass traditional digital marketing measurements, including view-through rates, click-through rates, share of search, return on investment calculations, and customer acquisition costs.
Kashikar explains, “When you do well on your campaign KPIs and on your brand metric KPIs, you end up eventually achieving your strategic KPIs.”
Psychographic targeting and media strategy
The organisation has transitioned from demographic to psychographic audience targeting, recognising the complexity of the Indian market. “In a market which is as complex and as fragmented as India, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” Kashikar observes, explaining the rationale for precision-targeted digital strategies.
Tourism Australia defines their target audience as “high-yielding travellers”—consumers who travel long-haul beyond five-hour flight radii and demonstrate significant spending patterns.
The media allocation reflects this strategy, with 60-70% of investment concentrated on digital platforms, including connected television, Google, Meta, and programmatic media purchases.
The remaining budget supports broad awareness initiatives through premium digital billboards positioned at strategic locations such as airports, premium shopping centres, and major highways in Mumbai and Delhi.
Influencer marketing and advocacy programmes
Advocacy remains central to Tourism Australia’s marketing approach, with influencer partnerships timed around major events and sporting occasions. The organisation leverages content opportunities such as cricket matches, concerts, and major sporting events to generate what Kashikar terms “FOMO-inducing experiences”.
Recent influencer initiatives include partnerships during the ICC Women’s World Cup 2020, India-Pakistan cricket matches, and multi-influencer programmes featuring up to 15 content creators attending major sporting events.
These programmes aim to build a “fashionability quotient for Australia” through authentic storytelling.
Growth projections and market challenges
Tourism Australia targets reaching 500,000 Indian visitor arrivals by the end of next year, building on current momentum. Kashikar expresses confidence that India’s position as one of the world’s fastest-growing large economies, combined with aviation industry expansion, supports continued growth.
Addressing visa processing concerns—a potential barrier compared to visa-free Southeast Asian destinations—Kashikar positions Australia’s digital visa system as a competitive advantage. He describes the fully digitised process, which eliminates physical applications, interviews, and embassy queues, as “best in class” compared to other Western countries.
Consumer behaviour evolution
Tourism Australia observes significant shifts in Indian travel patterns, including younger demographics travelling internationally and a generational attitude change towards experiential spending.
Kashikar notes, “We are now becoming a splurging economy,” referencing the “event-globe-trotting phenomena” driving international travel for cultural and entertainment experiences.
The organisation responds to these trends through their “Signature Experiences” programme, offering over 700 curated experiences, including luxury lodges, indigenous cultural attractions, wine experiences, and premium golf courses.
This product diversification addresses the evolved Indian traveller who, as Kashikar points out, is “no longer a tourist” but “well and truly becoming a traveller and willing to explore the world”.
The campaign represents Tourism Australia’s strategic response to India’s emergence as their fifth-largest inbound tourism market, combining authentic advocacy with sophisticated targeting methodologies to capture the evolving preferences of affluent Indian consumers.
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