FAITH seeks immediate support, writes to NITI Aayog

FAITH the policy federation of all the ten national associations representing the complete tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India has written to NITI Aayog for immediate support.

FAITH mentioned that the tourism industry is going through its worst period ever. Indian Tourism, pre- pandemic, had handled business of almost 11mn international inbound tourists, almost 17mn + international visitors arrivals, almost 30bn $ in forex, 2.3bn + domestic tourism visits and almost 27mn outbound travellers.

All this business have been shut down since March 2020 creating severe financial distress over the past 23 months for the complete Indian Tourism Value Chain of travel agents, hotels, tour operators, tourist transporters, restaurants and other tourism service providers.

UNDER URGENT SUPPORT MEASURES, FAITH RECOMMENDS:

• Extend an immediate direct wage support to the employees of all the pandemic affected travel and hospitality companies till tourism businesses have recovered.

• Offer an immediate one time grant to the tourism travel and hospitality companies whose businesses have been severely affected due to the pandemic to enable them to settle their statutory liabilities, rentals, levies and taxes.

• Under the new proposed foreign trade policy, create a provision for export credit similar to the earlier SEIS to be made available to tourism industry against their foreign exchange earnings.

• Abolish TCS with immediate effect on outbound trips which was introduced in Union Budget FY 2021-21.

• Create a global bidding fund for M.I.C.E sector of tourism with a minimum corpus for 500 crores.

• Make available an income tax exemption on travelling within India to make domestic tourism part of mainstream Indian economy.

• Declare hospitality as an infrastructure sector so that long term funds are accessible at suitable interest rates to attract private capital hospitality, to create all India jobs and build quality accommodation supply.

• Standardise all inter State Road taxes, levies and charges and make them payable at a single point to ensure a truly a seamless tourist transportation experience across the country.

• Convert the ECLGS scheme extension as a revival tool for tourism, travel & hospitality and not just a debt increase tool.

• Set up a panel to study GST corrections for tourism and make suggestions to the GST council on setoffs, rating corrections and GST law amendment across hospitality, tour operations, restaurants, travel agencies, M.I.C.E. & tourism transportation activities.

UNDER OTHER CRITICAL STRUCTURAL MEASURES, FAITH RECOMMENDS

• Establish a National Tourism Council chaired by the Hon. PM and co-chaired by the Hon. Tourism Minister composed of Hon. Chief Ministers or Hon. Tourism Ministers of all states.

• Tourism, travel & hospitality to be explored to be put on the concurrent list under the Constitution of India as tourism encompasses our national assets and Centre & states need to be aligned to have a synergistic and a coordinated approach in tourism planning and execution.

• Urge all states to declare tourism travel & hospitality as a ‘service industry’ to ensure that their utility rates for their enterprises are charged at the lower category of tariffs slabs in line with industries.

• Declare Tourism, travel & hospitality as vital export sector to ensure tax deduction in respect of their earnings in convertible foreign exchange and to make their forex businesses zero rated for GST with setoffs available for input duties & levies at state or central level.

• Create an Enhanced Corpus of 10000 crores for Global Tourism Branding considering the significant foreign exchange of more than $ 100 bn + generated by tourism over the 5 years pre pandemic.

• Set up an Underwriting Fund for protection of Travel Agents & Tour Operators As has been repeatedly seen in case of collapse of aviation  travel agents need to also be protected.