Market Snapshot: Global Survey Offers Insights Into U.S. Markets, India is becoming an important market for Australia and prices are being cut to Eastern Mediterranean resorts.

Travel agents serving the inbound travel and domestic markets will discover fresh insights from a new survey by Global Advertising Strategies, an international marketing agency. Global completed an extensive travel survey dedicated to consumer preferences of over 500 million travelers from the countries of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China.) Over 15,000 individuals revealed such travel details as preferred airlines, top destinations of interest within the United States, as well as average budget per traveler. Global reports. Read the Full Article at Travel Agent Central. The majority of tourists come to Australia from the Asia Pacific region, followed by Europe and North America. Inbound tourism from Asia Pacific has experienced strong growth since 2001, when just over 3mn people visited Australia, to reach 3.7mn in 2009. Arrivals from the region are forecast to experience continued growth to over 4.5mn by 2014. Out of the top 10 source markets for the Australian tourism industry, seven are in the Asia Pacific region. Australia attracts the most of its tourists from New Zealand, followed by the UK and Japan. India is also becoming an important market for Australia. Minister for Tourism Martin Ferguson said: ‘India is very important to Australia as a tourism opportunity. It’s the 10th largest economy and has the second largest population in the world. India is going to go through a significant period of growth, which is going to create opportunities for people to rationally think about travel.’ The ministry launched tourism campaigns in India with Qantas and Singapore Airlines in Q210 and it has a full-time tourism office in Mumbai. However, attacks on Indian students in Australia in recent years may put downward pressure on arrivals from India. Ferguson said the attacks have not caused a decrease in arrivals as tourists do not frequent the ‘difficult suburbs’ where they took place. Read the Summary of the Report at Australia Tourism Report Q3 2010 Prices of some last-minute package deals to the Mediterranean are being cut by up to a third compared with last year, a survey has suggested. As the traditional summer getaway starts in the UK, prices are being cut as some people decide to stay at home amid economic uncertainty. Research by Co-operative Travel has found that prices are being cut to Eastern Mediterranean resorts. Read the full article at BBC News