Sydney, Australia Sydney - Arab Today Tourism Australia has recently concluded its six-city training programme for front line staff of travel agencies in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata. The training programme was organised with an objective to enhance their knowledge about Australia as a destination, promote new products and Australian destinations, and to aid them in planning itineraries and handling customer queries. The destination training road show was conducted from 17 September to 11 October 2013 and saw participation from over 700 potential agents from Tourism Australia’s six target markets. “Such initiatives form an integral and important part of our trade strategy. Interactive training sessions are a great way for us to strengthen destination knowledge amongst the frontline staff to support their sales efforts. This year, the programs have been specially crafted based on the insights received from the target customer and Consumer Demand Project (CDP) research that provided an insight into consumers’ likes and preferences for travel to Australia,” said Nishant Kashikar, country manager for India & Gulf for Tourism Australia. “This was also a good opportunity for us to educate our travel partners on ‘Best of Australia’ experiences that we have been consistently showcasing through our marketing campaign, along with new products and destination including Tasmania, Western Australia and Northern Territory,” added Kashikar. For the year ending August 2013, a total of 166,300 Indian visitors arrived in Australia, an increase of 8.7%, compared to the same period of previous year. Leisure and VFR travel have also witnessed an encouraging 15% increase during the same period. Source: Travel Daily