Indian visitors numbers to Queensland are starting to recover from substantial losses seen in the aftermath of violent incidents involving Indian students in Victoria three years ago.

In the year to March 2012, Indian visitor numbers to the state rose 33% to 32,000, significantly outstripping Chinese growth of 16%.

International director Korea, India & Middle East Paul Buggy said numbers had plummeted in the wake of the 2009 episodes.

‚ÄúIt hit us at a time when we were starting to see substantial increases,” he told Travel Today.

But the negative perception of Australia in India now appeared to have subsided, Buggy said.

Tourism Australia country manager India Nishant Kashikar said the 300,000 Indians living in Australia would play a vital part of the tourism body’s India 2020 strategy, unveiled last week.

‚ÄúThey are really the advocates of Australia,” Kashikar said, adding they were highly active on social media platforms which helped them ‚Äúspread the word”.