India is among the top 10 countries which have helped Australia record its strongest tourism year since the Sydney Olympics Games in 2001, according to media reports. India was reported as one of the fastest growing source markets for the year ending June 2015, according to the latest survey report by Tourism Research Australia (TRA). More than 200,000 Indians visited Australia during the period under review -- up 20 per cent from the previous year -- with their spending surpassing 1 billion Australian dollars (about USD 700 million) for the first time, TR Business portal reported.

The TRA report said that India has moved up three places to become Australia’s eighth largest tourism market. China led the rest of the countries in terms of Australia’s top five markets by spend with Chinese visitor-numbers increasing by 22 per cent. Visitors from China contributed around 1 Australian dollar in every 5 Australian dollar spent by international visitors, according to TRA. The boom in Australia’s tourism industry saw more than 33 billion Australian dollars pumped into the economy, as international visitor numbers rose by seven percent to a new record high of 6.6 million.