Mr Steve Dimopoulos MP – travel report – India, 3 to 9 August 2025

*The above costs are not final and complete

Purpose of travel

The main purpose of my travel to India was to attend the Australia Marketplace India 2025, and to support engagement with key tourism, sport and major events stakeholders, meet with key event partners and participants and promote Melbourne and Victoria to significant international partners and licence holders.

My attendance provided an opportunity to engage directly with representatives from the Victorian tourism industry who are investing in the India market, including a speaking opportunity at the event to highlight Victoria as a destination and demonstrate Government’s ongoing commitment to the market.

Travel also provided the opportunity to discuss marketing and strategic opportunities with critical stakeholders in market, including airlines and Key Distribution Partners and to promote Victoria through several media interviews across multiple platforms.

Priority engagements included:

• Meeting with the Australia India Institute together with key stakeholders from the sport sector in India to discuss opportunities for greater collaboration between Victoria and India, including through high performance capability support and sportstech, and to launch the Australia India Institute’s report: ‘Advancing High Performance Sport: Victoria – India Opportunities’.
• A Roundtable discussion with Key Distribution Partners to understand how Melbourne and Victoria are positioned as destinations and strategic opportunities to grow our market share.
• Meetings with a number of airlines actively considering expansion of their international services to position Melbourne as a priority destination.

Benefits of travel to the State of Victoria

India

India is a priority market for tourism for Victoria, delivering 223,000 Indian visitors to Victoria each year, staying 12.4 million nights and spending $714 million.

Victoria holds the lead market share of Indian spend, trips and nights, and has increased its share of visitors and nights compared to 2019.

Spend growth continues to accelerate significantly, up 84% over the year ending March 2025. This is also 49% above the result of the year ending March 2019.

Sport is also a key component of the Victoria-India relationship, as highlighted in Victoria’s India Strategy: Our Shared Future 2025-30 whereby opportunities to further nurture cooperation between the 2 countries are being explored.

The particulars of my travel to the India included:

Jaipur

• Attending the Australia Marketplace India 2025, where Victoria had the largest contingent of Australian operators at the event. During the event I undertook a range of activities, including:
  • meeting with Victorian operators to discuss the importance of the Indian market, their perceptions of the market and aspirations for growth
  • holding discussions with Tourism Australia to discuss market insights and gain a greater understanding of Tourism Australia’s strategies in Southeast and South Asia
  • hosting a Roundtable discussion with eight senior leaders of Victoria’s Key Distribution Partners in India, providing the opportunity to engage with senior leadership of Indian key trade partners to understand their priorities and opportunities to grow Victoria’s market share
  • speaking at the conclusion of the Australia Marketplace event and addressing attendees to highlight Victoria’s commitment to the India market and to thank attendees on behalf of the Government for their cooperation in promoting Melbourne and Victoria as a destination.

Delhi and Mumbai

• I undertook several media interviews to promote Victoria across a variety of outlets, including:
  • Outlook Traveller
  • ET Travel World
  • WION (Indian English language news channel)
  • CNBC India
  • Elle India.
• I also participated in an ‘influencer lunch’ with over 30 journalists and content creators, whose reach exceeds 100 million followers, to encourage them to visit and promote Victoria.
• The AVE (advertising value equivalent) of media coverage from the interviews was close to $470,000.
• I attended meetings with stakeholders relevant to the tourism, sport and major
  events portfolio, including:
  • Make My Trip, India’s leading Online Travel Agency, to exchange insights to better align destination marketing and communications for Victoria
  • IndiGo, Air India and Singapore Airlines, to discuss strategic opportunities and potential future investment in Victoria
  • Hotel operators, to discuss investment opportunities, particularly in regional Victoria
  • Sport Authority of India (SAI), to discuss key opportunities between Victoria and India in high performance and community sports and strengthen Victoria’s relationship with the SAI through potential collaborations with the Victorian Institute of Sport
  • DreamSetGo, a premium sports hospitality, experiences and travel brand, to discuss strategic collaboration opportunities to further position Melbourne as the sporting capital of Australia
  • Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), to discuss the success of the PKL Melbourne Raid, and whether there was an opportunity to revisit this and develop a team that could also compete in the World Cup
  • I also hosted a Roundtable with industry leaders, where the Australia India Institute’s report: ‘Advancing High Performance Sport: Victoria – India Opportunities’ was launched. This report explores avenues for Victoria to engage with Indian states to strengthen high-performance sport ecosystems and builds on a commitment following the Premier’s visit in 2024 to expand Victoria-India collaboration in sports management, including offering Victorian expertise to support India’s prospective bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games
  • In total, there were 28 meetings across 5 days on the ground. It was a week during which Victoria was the subject of conversations that focused solely on progressing the interests of the Victorian tourism industry to the Indian market.

Next steps/Follow up

• Work with Visit Victoria to further strengthen relationships with Key Distribution Partners and build an even deeper understanding of the breadth of visitor experiences on offer across Victoria, including through hosting opportunities at some of Victoria’s major events.
• Undertake follow up discussions with Victoria’s Visitor Economy Partnership Chief Executive Officers to share insights on strategic opportunities in the India market and build greater awareness locally of the strong alignment between Victoria’s tourism offering and the needs and wants of a rapidly growing Indian middle-class, including self-drive travel, luxury travel and experience driven travel (e.g. major events, cultural events).
• Together with Visit Victoria, facilitate a Roundtable discussion with Victorian major event providers to provide a brief on opportunities in the Indian market, particularly related to experience driven travel.
• Continue to engage with IndiGo, Air India and Singapore Airlines as they consider expansion opportunities to keep Melbourne front of mind.
• Continue to discuss investment attraction opportunities to support visitation, particularly to Victoria’s regions.
• Continue to advocate to the Federal Minister for Home Affairs to ensure transit and tourist visas do not present a barrier to visitation.