Mr. Nakul Anand, Chairman FAITH, shared…
FAITH’s Vision Statement for Indian tourism –
- To make Indian Tourism preferred and loved by global and domestic tourists
- To create economic and wealth creation opportunities for tourism, travel & hospitality entrepreneurs for India
- To position Tourism rightly as social economic job and infrastructure creator for India
- To become a role model sector for sustainable and inclusive growth
FAITH Vision 2035 lays down the following key headline action goals –
- Target 75 million Inbound Tourists
- Aim for US$ 150 Billion of foreign exchange earnings from Inbound Tourism
- Aim for 7.5 Billion Domestic Tourism Visits
- Target 15 Crores of Direct and Indirect Employment from Tourism in Public and Private sector in Hotels, Travels Agencies and Tour Operations, Tourism Transportation, Food Services, Destination Management and Services that are looking after tourists
- Target US$ 225 Billion of Economic Revenue from Domestic Tourism
- Target US$75 Billion capex direct and indirect annually
- Target US$ 1.1 Trillion + + economic impact direct and indirect)
- Enable 75 Million Outbound Travellers from India
FAITH Tourism Vision 2035 proposes 4 Strategic Pillars to achieve the goals
- Shared National Tourism Approach
- Value Accretive Regulations
- Investment Drivers
- Market Excellence
Press statements of member Associations
Mr. P.P. Khanna, President, ADTOI (Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India)
“Indian domestic tourism is already the second highest in the world with almost 2.3 billion domestic tourism visits. The GST on Tour operators should be 1.8% with full set offs. Currently it is at 5% that too without setoffs, which implies tax on tax and defeats the purpose of GST. We must make income tax exemption available on travelling within India to make domestic tourism part of mainstream Indian economy. The centre and state must jointly target up to 10 centres of tourism excellence in each state. Connectivity in each state between state capitals and tourism centres must be ensured through special high speed vista trains or Shatabdis or Rajdhani trains or full flight connectivity under Udaan. The Government must also offer an immediate one-time grant to the domestic tourism travel & hospitality companies who have suffered majorly in the pandemic.”
Mr. Tejbir Singh Anand, Alternate Board Member to FAITH ATOAI (Adventure Tour Operators Association of India) & Vice-Chairman, FAITH
“We are a blessed country being only one of the 17 Megadiverse countries of the world. Each state of India has the potential to become a centre of excellence in natural and adventure tourism. At the outset, we must have a sustainable and responsible development plan around each vertical of natural heritage tourism be it in Mountaineering, cruising, trekking, wild life & reserve forests based activities, snorkelling, para gliding, white-water rafting, conservatories, para gliding, ballooning, desert safaris and so on. These sustainable plans must be based on carrying capacities of the destinations and framed around sustainable guidelines developed by experts of our association ATOAI & those which have also been recommended by tourism ministry. We need to be rightfully recognised as an export industry either through SEIS like instruments with 10% duty credit in the new foreign trade policy or zero rating in GST and also 1.8% GST with full setoffs for our tour operators.”
Mr. Garish Oberoi, Alternate Board Member to FAITH from FHRAI (Federation of Hotels & Restaurants Association of India) and Treasurer FAITH
“India has an estimated more than 70000 hotels and over 5 lakhs restaurants. To achieve our vision, Hotels and Restaurants across each state of India need to be declared and treated as an industry. The 18% GST category for hotels above room rates of ₹ 7500 must be abolished and merged with the category of 12% GST. Gradually it should be brought down further below 10% with full set offs in line with global trends. Restaurants too have an 18% and also 5% slab but which is without setoffs. The 18% category needs to be abolished and there needs to be an option made available of GST at 12% with full set offs. E- Single window clearance at a national level must be enabled for hotels & restaurants through hospitality Development Promotion Board and all existing licenses, permits, permissions must be thoroughly examined for redundancies and standardised at a national level.”
Mr. Rajiv Mehra, President, Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) & Honorary Secretary of FAITH
“In the post Covid period our vision is to double India’s share of inbound tourism to 2.5% in the medium term post normal and then double it again to more than 5% in the medium – long post that. In the new Foreign Trade Policy, a duty credit similar to earlier SEIS rate should be made effective at 10% for the next 10 years. The inbound tourism which earns foreign exchange needs to be treated at par with merchandise exports and needs to be zero rated on GST. The GST on Tour operators should be 1.8% with full set offs which is calculated as 18% GST on a 10% margin. Currently at 5% that too without setoffs it effectively comes to 18% on a 38% margin – this has made India travel one of the most expensive globally. The commercial flights need to resume in full to ensure affordable rate travel. Multiple entry tourist E-Visa needs to be effectively issued. The policy of free e- visa should be extended to 2024 till full resumption of inbound tourism happens.”
Mr. Randhir Vikram Singh, President, IHHA (Indian Heritage Hotels Association)
“India has one of the most unique heritage in the world going back more than 10000 years. Our tourism vision for 2035 and beyond in the heritage tourism segment is to target must be minimum 10 million to 30 million heritage foreign tourists. Our ultimate tourism goal is for India’s rank to be number 1 globally in heritage tourism. There must be a heritage tourism board which must be set up with representation of all states and centre in coordination with IHHA to synchronise and standardise heritage tourism policies. Efforts must be made at both Centre and State level to ensure that at least one crore skilled tourism travel and hospitality employees in heritage tourism itself have been trained to deliver the goals that we are setting. Both income tax incentives and GST concessions must be given to tourism enterprises which restore and revive broken and lost heritage monuments of India.”
Mr. Amaresh Tiwari, Vice Chairman, India Convention Promotion Bureau (ICPB)
“Our first objective post Covid, in medium term would be to double our MICE share to 2.5% of the world and then doubling it over medium to long term. In the global international congress associations rankings our goal will be to take India’s rank to the top 10 in the world from 28, where we were pre Covid. We need to recognise MICE tourism as a distinct business segment. We must target global congress, conventions and conferences, and social events. We need to create a global MICE bidding fund with a corpus for ₹500 crores to enable our entrepreneurs undertake techno economic bids for events which have a bid cycle of 2 years plus. We need to create city convention bureaus in each of our main cities which will work with ICPB as their hub to carry out a global bidding activity. We also need to give incentivise Indian companies to host their MICE events in India and not abroad. For that we need to offer a 200% weighted income tax expense benefit to Indian companies. We need to enable IGST for our hotels, which will complete the end to end GST chain.”
Mr. Sharat Chandra, Treasurer, Indian Tourist Transportation Association (ITTA)
Tourist transportation is the backbone of domestic tourism. Globally in all countries stable and uniform policies for tourist transportation have stimulated growth. We need to become seamless in our tourist transportation procedures as well and so we need to standardise all inter State road taxes and payable at a single point which will facilitate the ease of doing business. The renewal of All India permits, local permits, fitness for new cars all need to become paperless. As a solution, authorised dealerships of respective manufacturers should be allowed for valid fitness. Parking is a structural issue which needs to be addressed to handle group travel in all our cities. We need to have ‘one country one GST’. GST should not be applicable on forex earnings of Tourist Transport. It should also be reduced on purchase of buses from 28% to 18% to encourage group tourism. Special training classes for chauffeurs to handle high end foreign and domestic tourists must be undertaken to encourage premium travel.
Mrs. Jyoti Mayal, President, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) and Vice Chairman, FAITH
“We see Indian travel and tourism becoming one of the biggest travel opportunities globally over the medium to long term. Whether it is outbound, domestic or inbound travel or in segments of business travel, leisure travel, weddings travel, conference travel or special activities such as medical or rural tourism travel we look forward to creating multiple opportunities for our travel agents fraternity. We have to constantly plan to enable our travel agents communities to partner and create combinations of online and offline models. We have to increasingly partner with multiple country tourism boards to collaborate with the Indian travel agents fraternity and expand country opportunities for them. We have to ensure a significant component of reskilling and upskilling of the travel agents’ fraternity. A key requirement is to make Indian travel agents globally competitive. We along with the Government have to ensure that TCS on outbound travel is not levied. Opening up of scheduled commercial flights and moving towards creating a fully functional regional aviation hub will fast track the Indian travel industry.”
Mr. Ajay Prakash, President, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI)
“Our primary vision for our travel agents fraternity is foremost to ensure their security and their protection while making efforts to identifying their business expansion possibilities. Today our travel agents are under a huge business stress and we keenly look forward to a mechanism to ensure they get support for survival till full travel resumes both between source & destination countries. The two way commercial flights need to resume in full to ensure affordable rate travel for passengers inbound and outbound. Our national travel websites among governments should also get standardised and must include higher component of verified ‘alternate accommodation’ options across destinations to enable travel agents to add them in their product inventory. Finally our GST regime for travel and tourism needs a complete overhaul and we suggest a special committee to look into all issues of GST rates and credits along the entire travel and tourism value chain.”
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