Adam Gilchrist promotes WA in road trips campaign for India

• Australian cricket legend fronts new tourism campaign promoting day trips from Perth
• Set to encourage Indian visitors to explore WA's capital and surrounds
• Follows record visitor spend of nearly $18 billion in WA by travellers

Australian cricket legend Adam Gilchrist and his son Harry are the faces of a new campaign promoting day trips from Perth to the lucrative Indian tourism market.

Set to launch in Mumbai and Delhi from Monday the 19^th August the campaign features the former cricketer and his son exploring a range of attractions in and around the outskirts of Perth.

The pair experienced four-wheel-driving and sandboarding in Lancelin, went stargazing in the Pinnacles, visited wineries in the Swan Valley, enjoyed a dolphin boat cruise in Rockingham and completed the thrilling Vertigo experience at Optus Stadium.

Their adventures have been compiled into videos and photos for Indian social media and Cricbuzz, one of the most popular mobile apps for cricket news and scores with over 50 million users and monthly traffic of nearly 400 million. 

The campaign will also feature on large billboards in Mumbai and Delhi, and direct people to accommodation, tourism experiences and partner deals with Indian travel agency Thomas Cook and Skyscanner which will offer packages to Perth.

The campaign aligns perfectly with the opening cricket series of the summer  The West Test  between Australia and India at Optus Stadium in November.

India is a priority tourism market for Western Australia with a total of 34,000 visitors arriving in WA and spending $128 million in year ending March 2024.

India has leapt to become Western Australia's seventh largest market from 11^th largest in 2019, with the accelerated growth indicating surging demand from Indian visitors, driven by a large Indian community in WA of approximately 61,000 residents, including around 9,600 international students.

The new India campaign is a market-specific iteration of the successful global road trips campaign Drive the Dream, which launched in September 2023 and features Perth-born Formula 1 star Daniel Ricciardo exploring Australia's Coral Coast with his best mate. This campaign has reached over 136 million people.

Both iterations of the Drive the Dream campaign align with the state's highly acclaimed destination brand, Walking On A Dream. 

It follows the recent release of figures from Tourism Australia, which showed WA outperformed all other states in total visitor spend compared to 2019, with a record $17.9 billion spend by travellers in the year ending March 2024.

Comments attributed to Tourism Minister Rita Saffioti:

"Adam Gilchrist is not only an Australian cricket legend, he's a national treasure and we're so excited to have him as part of this campaign promoting his home state to India, particularly given he's a household name over there as well.

"India is certainly a priority tourism market for us, and our strong and proud Indian community in WA has no doubt had a big influence on the fast-increasing visitor numbers, with people coming to visit family and friends in WA.

"We're hoping this campaign will encourage those people in India to come out to WA to visit relatives or grab some mates and book their tickets to The West Test in November, and then go on to enjoy the easily accessible day trips Adam and his son Harry enjoyed.

"This campaign, along with other iterations of Drive the Dream with Daniel Ricciardo and our overarching Walking On A Dream brand, play a really important role in revitalising our visitor economy and putting WA on the map as a sought-after tourism destination."