The year 2020 is going to be a landmark year for cricket fans in India. Australia will be host to not one, but two World Cups — ICC Women’s T20 at the beginning of the year (February 21-March 8), followed by the men’s tournament in October.

“Over the past few years, Australia has gained popularity with India as a travellers’ favourite destination. The ICC T20 World Cup provides an exciting opportunity for us to curate some special experiences for Indians who would love to visit Australia ,” said Vishal Suri, Managing Director, SOTC Travel. Sports tourism has diversified from its conventional form — which was restricted to viewing the sport live — to combining the experience with MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conference and Exhibitions) and Leisure travel, he added.

According to Ixigo, an online travel and hotel platform, there has been a 21 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) increase in bookings in January 2020 for Australia compared with the same period in January 2019.

Surge in search queries

On the other hand, there has been a surge of 13 per cent Y-o-Y in the search data for the February-March 2020 period from last year. “While bookings for Australia took a slight dip in December and January due to the bushfires, there has been a 10-15 per cent increase in search queries for travel to Australia in February and March compared with the same time last year. Around 45 per cent of the search queries are from Mumbai and Bengaluru. Travellers are spending anywhere between ₹2 and ₹5 lakh on their trips,” said Aloke Bajpai, co-founder and CEO, Ixigo.

With 44 per cent, Melbourne has received the maximumt number of search queries, followed by Sydney (21 per cent), Adelaide (8 per cent) and Brisbane (8 per cent).

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