Subhash Goyal, Honorary General Secretary, FAITH virtually interacted with the Minister of Tourism, Prahlad Singh Patel where he made suggestions on behalf of the Indian Tourism Industry pertaining to the revival of Tourism sector post-COVID.

Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality, 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) & cause partner AIRDA suggests the government to conduct India Tourism Mart (ITM) at the end of November this year.

Subhash Goyal, Honorary General Secretary, FAITH virtually interacted with the Minister of Tourism (MoT), Prahlad Singh Patel where he proposed multi-step strategies for revival of tourism. These issues were identified to enhance tourism demand while protecting tourism supply in India.

According to Goyal, ITM will help in promoting India to tour operators all over the world. "Last two years, we had 250 buyers, this year in the virtual mart we hope to interact with more than 500 leading travel agents and tour operators from all over the world," he said.

Tourism encompasses multiple ministries and happens across states. It thus requires a coordinated approach across all the ministries at the central government level and between centre and state. FAITH Associations have proposed a dual task force strategy. An inter-ministerial task force at the central government level and an interstate task force. These two task forces need to be empowered and need to be agile to fast track decision making as tourism will be the last sector to revive.

To stimulate domestic tourism FAITH associations recommended dispelling consumer fear and confusion by ensuring uniform inter-quarantine air & land border policy across all states. This will provide confidence and give knowledge to bath business and leisure tourists.

Furthermore, Goyal extended his gratitude to the Tourism Minister for agreeing to organise a joint meeting of the Indian travel agents and tour operators with the Minister of Civil Aviation, Hardeep Singh Puri to sort out the pending issues of tourism industry with Civil Aviation. He suggested that since there is no quarantine for those passengers who have taken a negative COVID test 96 hours before, the Ministry of Tourism should aggressively market India as a safe & hygienic destination in all international electronic media and social platforms. During the discussion, he further proposed a uniform interstate quarantine policy as in many states, only people who travel by air are quarantined and the people who travel by road are not. He also stated that the incentives given on business conferences and events should also be extended to e-conferences, social events and film production events.

FAITH 10 associations proposed incentivising two segments domestic conferences and domestic consumers to travel within India by creating structured tax breaks. As travel bubbles have started between India and international countries, FAITH associations proposed a multi year e- visa holiday for all visa categories as and when till inbound demand to India stabilises. This needs to be complemented by publicising widely the revised 96 hour RT PCR policy for COVID testing and ensuring standardisation across all airports.

Goyal offered that tour operators and travel agents recognised by tourism ministry should be allowed to operate tours for adventure, religious, or education purposes which are recognised as LTC enabled agents & operators. “LTC benefits should also be given for religious, adventure and educational tours within India for domestic tourism to restart all hotels & bars, not only in Delhi but all over India immediately maintaining strict health safety protocols,” he said. 

For the revival of tourism Goyal stated that it is very important to extend the moratorium on bank loans of hotels, tour operators and tourist transporters by another three to six months.

The meetings segment has to begin its revival process and FAITH associations said guidelines must be considered to be revised upwards by allowing 300 indoors and upto 500 in open areas. Meetings segment must now formally also include, recognise and officially support all forms social gatherings and movie shoots and virtual meetings. It is also critical for IGST to be enabled for hospitality industry which will enhance cross-state Indian meetings industry movement with companies getting gst credit while using hotels for meetings tourism in other states.

FAITH Associations have requested Delhi Hotels to be unlocked as Delhi is the gateway of North India. They have also requested for all states to support hospitality by giving a statutory waiver on all fixed liabilities power costs, liquor permits, property cesses and so on. They have suggested that GST be rationalised for hotels above rupees 7500 to be brought down to 12 per cent from 18 per cent which will stimulate domestic travel.

FAITH Associations to revive restaurants also requested for the GST option with full setoff made available for restaurants and restaurant GST be delinked from hotel tariffs.

To financially protect the tourism companies, till the resolution plan is set in motion by the RBI, FAITH Associations proposed extension of the moratorium of tourism & hospitality companies. They have also requested for automatic extension of all tourist transport and tour operators permits, liquor licenses and other extensions. The Indian travel agents are key enablers of the travel distribution. FAITH Associations requested for an even more healthy partnership approach between Indian travel agents, IATA & Air India. Travel agents and consumers also need to insured against airline payment defaults of their advances and cancellations and mechanisms need to be put in place.

Concluding the meeting, Goyal said, "The FAITH Associations are hopeful that the demand generation measures and supply protection measures for tourism will be implemented quickly to kick start Indian tourism and express their gratitude to Tourism Ministry for initiating this exercise."