FAITH, the policy federation of all the national associations representing the complete tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India (ADTOI, ATOAI, FHRAI, HAI, IATO, ICPB, IHHA, ITTA, TAAI, TAFI) has said that more direct and immediate support could have been extended.
The extension of ECLGS expansion till 2023 with additional corpus of ₹ 50000 crores dedicated to hospitality and allied industries will help provide relief. Hopefully, the fine print will enable moratorium extension of all previous schemes and debt restructuring.
The announcements around PM Gati Shakti for multi modal transport, plan for seamless travel, plan for 400 new Vande Bharat, 5 planned DPR of river systems, 8 new ropeways under Parvart Mala, integrated connectivity between railways station, e- passports, PM North-East infrastructure, digital rupee, 1 lakh crore additional interest free support will have medium to long term growth implications for tourism growth in India.
“The whole tourism travel & hospitality industry is feeling quite dejected. The union budget provides some relief and medium to long term infrastructure measures to stressed tourism travel & hospitality industry but there was an immediate opportunity for more direct intervention to support the highly stressed tourism travel and hospitality companies and their employees. This could have come in the form of wage support for employees of tourism travel and hospitality companies till tourism revival happens, abolishment of TCS on outbound travel, infrastructure status to hotels, e-visa fees waiver for all tourist visas till inbound revival happens, domestic income tax travel credit for Indian citizens and Indian companies, Export status for tourism export earnings, global bidding fund for Indian mice companies and setup of GST review committee to re-examine the tourism travel & hospitality GST pain points,” said Nakul Anand, Chairman, FAITH.
The additional support measures could have come through the following measures
- Direct wage support to employee of tourism travel and hospitality companies till tourism revival happens.
- Abolishment of TCS on outbound travel to prevent travel expenditure shifting from Indian travel companies to offshore travel companies.
- Infrastructure status to hotels irrespective of their location or capital size to support capex growth.
- E- Visa fees waiver for all tourist visas for 2022 and beyond to support inbound revival
- Export status for tourism export earnings to support inbound revival.
- Doubled, expenditure allocation for tourism ministry to enable intensive global reach out to support inbound revival.
- Domestic income tax travel credit for Indian citizens and Indian companies to support domestic retail and domestic mice pickup.
- Global bidding fund to enable bidding support to Indian mice companies to bring global mice events to India.
- Setup of GST review committee to re-examine the tourism, travel & hospitality GST pain points
