FAITH calls out to survive and revive on ‘India Tourism Vision Day’

With the theme ‘For Indian Tourism to thrive tomorrow, it has to survive and revive today,’ the Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH), the policy federation consisting of ten national associations representing the complete tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India, on October 8, 2020, had organised ‘India Tourism Vision Day’. The Board and the Presidents of all the ten FAITH Associations held a virtual National Press Conference to address the theme and their respective visions for the present and future along with addressing the issues the hospitality and travel industry is facing owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

When FAITH was launched in 2013, Indian Tourism was ranked at 68th at the World Economic Forum Tourism Competitiveness study. FAITH along with the support of the Ministry of tourism worked on many initiatives to better this rank. In the World Economic Forum, tourism 2019 competitiveness study, India is now ranked 34th. From 68 to 34 is a giant leap but Indian Tourism still has a long way to go and FAITH wants to take it to the next level.

Over the past seven years, the FAITH Associations, their Executive Committees across the country have indeed worked very hard with their respective state governments and with the central government to undertake countless initiatives to double the global tourism competitiveness ranking of our country. Now, their first goal is to move India into the Top 20 ranks in global tourism competitiveness in 5 years post COVID and then on to the top 10 rankings in the next following five years. Below are excerpts from the speeches made by the association members on ‘India Tourism Vision Day.’

Nakul Anand Chairman, FAITH

To give you an estimate, Indian tourism accounts for between 9–10 per cent of Indian GDP on a direct and indirect basis. In the post-COVID normal as our country moves towards the stated goal of becoming a $ 5 trillion dollar economy, our vision is to have a tourism economic footprint of $ 500 bn. That would more than double the economic footprint of tourism from what it is today.

From now, till the time the vaccine is deployed, we need to sustain tourism and the service talent that forms the core of this industry. We believe this will be best served by a tourism COVID-19 Fund set up by the Ministry of Tourism where interest-free funds are given to support the employees and the operating costs of tourism companies.

We need to ensure that an across the board moratorium is made immediately applicable for tourism enterprises till March 2022 or till complete recovery happens and there should be no interest on interest during that period. As we restart tourism from a zero base today across all our verticals, we need revival policies in terms of GST correction, export status, infrastructure status, industry status, secured refunds, SEIS, all of which will be detailed shortly by the 10 Association Presidents of FAITH. These are the fundamental enablers of putting the Indian tourism economy back on track.

Indian tourism needs to be structured through a constitutionally empowered legislative body - A national tourism council headed by our Honourable Prime Minister along with the presence of all chief ministers. This will enable fast track centre state-level tourism decision making and work on a One India- One Tourism approach leveraging and utilizing full synergies of India’s tourism potential across all our states. This will raise the decibels for going Vocal with Local. In line with Made in India, our vision is Tourism - Made in India, to make India one of the most preferred Tourism destinations both for domestic and international tourists offering best in class tourism experiences, infrastructure and services right here in India.

Captain Swadesh Kumar President Adventure Tour Operators Association of India

In the $ 750 bn+ world adventure tourism industry which is poised to touch $ 1.5 trillion in the post COVID world, India currently has a negligible share. We look forward to working closely with the central and each state government to move towards a vision

is to get at a respectable market share of 5-10 per cent in the medium to the long run in the world adventure tourism market which is commensurate with our immense natural assets.

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, wildlife and reserve forests based activities, snorkelling, paragliding, white water rafting, conservatories, paragliding, ballooning, desert safaris and so on.

Most adventure tourism activities are based on working with the local population in hinterlands and rural areas and which is in unorganised sector. Currently, all of them are unemployed with no work. We need a robust social security mechanism effective immediately across the country on the lines of MNREGA for such tourism industry stakeholders. Some states such as Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Uttarakhand have started a support mechanism for such tourism stakeholders that need to be replicated across the country. We need to have a robust hub and spoke, all-season, intermodal connectivity model across air, rail, road, or water connecting such destinations across the country. We want to become one of the top ten nations in adventure tourism ranking in the post COVID world and must accordingly have to enable policy mechanisms such as search and rescue, satellite phone connectivity, x visa, global insurance recognition and more.

PP Khanna President, ADTOI

In the post - COVID period, our vision is to double India’s share of domestic tourism to almost 4bn domestic tourism visits in 5 years post normal and then increase it again to 8 bn domestic tourism visits in the next five years post that. However, the domestic tour operators are in bad shape as today people have just started only travelling short distances in their private vehicles. This situation is likely to continue till the time vaccine comes.

To survive, the domestic tour operators need to be supported have an operating cash subsidy to pay their salaries and operating costs. To boost the fast track revival of the domestic tourism market, income tax needs to be exempted for travelling within India. Indian citizens can get income tax credits for up to `1.5 lakhs when spending with GST registered domestic tour operators, travel agents, hoteliers and transporters. Not only will this organise the domestic tourism industry which is highly unorganised, but this will also revive domestic demand systematically, a practice that is being followed in many countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Japan, etc.

For our domestic tourism to become world-class, we have to have a consistent national focus on 3S - Safety, Sanitisation, Sensitisation. The ideation drive by our tourism ministry to create Special Tourism Zones across states which would reflect the unique heritage of India in integrated world-class Infrastructure is commendable and its implementation must be fasttracked to boost tourism supply.

Gurbaxish Singh Kohli Vice President, Federation of Hotels & Restaurants Industry of India

India has an estimated more than 70000 hotels and over 5 lakhs restaurants. Our vision is to establish India as the concept hospitality and cuisine capital of the world. To make India the global hospitality and cuisine tourism capital and create an ecosystem for entrepreneurship and business models we need an enabling environment from state governments and the central government.

Foremost, hotels and restaurants across each state of India need to be declared and treated as an industry. Unlike commercial establishments we don’t just retail, we create and produce high-quality service. Power and water utility rates must be at industrial rates effectively.

GST rates for hospitality in India are one of the highest in the world. This makes both domestic and inbound tourism in India expensive. The 18 per cent GST category for hotels above room rates of ` 7500 must be abolished and merged with the category of 12 per cent GST. Gradually, it should be brought down further below 10 per cent with full setoffs in line with global trends.

Today, hospitality covers both conventional and also alternate accommodation such as b&b guest houses, short term rentals and so on. It is thus critical to ensure there is a level playing field in terms of compliances and entry requirements among all sub-segments. This is the darkest moment for the worsthit industry hospitality and restaurants and our constant dialogues make us confident that State governments and the Central government will enable a lot of policies to revive hotels and restaurants to enable us to move towards our vision.

MP Bezbaruah Secy Gen, Hotels Association of India

Our vision is to increase the intensity of high-quality hotel accommodation in India which is currently low as compared to global tourism leaders. India has less than 0.2 million classified rooms. This has a direct correlation to our global tourism share which is around 1 per cent. To enable our vision of tourism leadership and to attain our goal of enhancing quality hospitality infrastructure we need to make enabling policy changes to Hospitality which is social infrastructure and is the core of tourism.

If India targets 1 million classified quality hotel infrastructure, that would imply a mammoth capital expenditure of `25 lakh crores, If we assume a conservative weighted average estimate of `25 lakhs per room. Such kind of capital can only come from the private sector and that requires a long term favorable lowinterest rate regime. Hotels are projects with a long breakeven period. Hotels thus require to be declared as a social 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.

Land banks are the most critical resource for hospitality projects. They are also the biggest capex drivers. Very high-quality land assets are available with public sector units and government which can be used to enhance hospitality growth. However, to do that, our hospitality PPP models need to be standardised across the country which create lease structure which enable government share to be linked to business growth and not as fixed payouts which will drive immense hospitality capital into India.

Amaresh Tiwari Vice Chairman, India Convention Promotion Bureau

The global MICE industry is estimated to be upwards of $800 bn and India’s share is estimated to be around 1 per cent. This sector has a direct correlation with the GDP. Thus, in line with our GDP share of the world, our first goal post COVID, in 5 years would be to double our MICE share to 2.5 percent of the world and then doubling it over the medium 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 are currently. We will also aim to benchmark our cities to the top global MICE cities. Currently, we have 1 city in the top 100 ranks. Our goal will be having 3 Indian cities in the top 100 in 5 years post COVID and 6 cities in the top 100 in the medium to long term. We need to recognise MICE tourism as a distinct business segment and we need to create a sub-brand to the main brand ‘Incredible India’.

To 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 to undertake technoeconomic bids for events that 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. In the post – COVID era, we also need to incentive Indian corporates to undertake domestic MICE and to prevent Indian MICE events from going abroad. For that, we need to offer a 200 per cent weighted income tax expense benefit to Indian companies that are undertaking MICE events in India.

MICE infrastructure is a highly capitalintensive long gestation business and thus we look forward to this being also declared as the infrastructure sector to have longterm funding access to low-interest rates. Of the Special Tourism Zones being planned by the tourism ministry, we look forward to the mega tourism zone which should be fully integrated into world-class MICE city.

Sharat Chandra Treasurer, Indian Tourist Transportation Association

Tourist transportation is the backbone of domestic tourism. Globally in all countries stable and uniform policies for tourist transportation have stimulated growth. Thus our vision for Indian tourism is very simple and straightforward. We want to provide a seamless, safe and satisfying driving Experience across the lengths and breadths of India for city tourism, state tourism, or national tourism.

Lack of cash inflow is the most pressing issue during the COVID and thus it is most critical that refund of unutilised GST credit lying with the government to the operators must happen which will get liquidity into the system. It is important to have an exemption from payment of insurance premium for the tourist transport vehicles for the financial year till complete stability happens. There needs to be a complete waiver from payment of interstate taxes on tourist transport vehicles for a period of one year till complete resumption takes place. Implementation of these will ensure the survival of tourist transporters and movement towards our vision of creating a seamless tourist experience.

HH Maharaja Gaj Singh President, Indian Heritage Hotels Associations

Today, it is estimated that just about 1 per cent of India’s heritage has actually been monetised for hospitality and a large part of it may be falling apart for lack of funds or policy focus. Be those our palaces and forts, our monuments and museums, our food, arts and crafts, our historical sites, a lot of them have the potential to become world-class tourism assets.

We need to create a special focus on Indian heritage through a heritage subbrand which is linked to the main brand of Incredible India. In the post-COVID normal, we need to have India heritage evenings in each of the top 100 cities of the world. We need to create a heritage restoration fund and set up a corpus of at least `1000 crores which encourages the custodians of our heritage across the country by funding their efforts at keeping our history alive.

Heritage civic structures are extremely delicate to maintain and thus our depreciation policies, property and other municipal taxes need to be accommodative and supportive to help their owners maintain them commercially. More so heritage hotels bring our history back to life with an enormous amount of effort to restore and conserve them while creating unique hospitality experiences. For the heritage tourism of India, our past will be our future and we look forward to working with all state governments and with the central government to making that happen.

Pronab Sarkar President, IATO

In the pre-COVID period, India had a global share of 1.2 per cent of international travel. This is not commensurate with the size and scope of India can offer. In the post - COVID period our vision is to double India’s share of inbound tourism to 2.5 per cent in 5 years post normal and then double it again to 5 per cent in the next five years post that. This will rightfully put Indian tourism in the global league where it belongs.

To survive till then, the inbound tour operators need to have an operating cash subsidy to pay salaries and operating costs as has been effectively done in the USA and the UK. Our SEIS rate should be made effective 10 per cent for the next 10 years and should be payable immediately on our financial year 2019-20 gone by.

In the post COVID era, each of our missions abroad should be activated with tourism resources for enhancing our tourism distribution in all countries. We are confident that Indian tourism is the next global champion sector for India and the road to that vision begins by surviving and reviving today.

Jyoti Mayal President, TAAI and Vice Chairman, FAITH

The Indian tourism industry is and will undergo a massive radical change. In the post COVID era, 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 been in close discussions with the tourism ministry for the same and look forward to exciting new segments emerging for our travel agents community. For all of this to succeed, partnerships are critical between the travel agents industry, across the tourism industry value chain and with various ministries and we keenly look forward to that. This is time we have to survive and revive and continue to build trust and confidence to deal with the challenges today in the post-COVID era.

Pradip Lulla President, 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. No future is safe till our present is safe for our travel agents fraternity.

We have to build on this further collectively to ensure that we create security for our travel agents. Travel agents’ payments to principals is unsecured credit and we need to ensure that some form of mechanisms whether escrow or guarantee or underwriting based mechanisms are in place to ensure that travel agents’ money stays secure. We look forward to working with the Government on the same.

India is going to be one of the biggest source markets for outbound travel. We see this as the largest opportunity for our travel agents fraternity. In 2019, 27 million Indians travelled outwards. This has doubled over the past 10 years and postCOVID, we see this doubling again into almost 50 million travellers in less than 10 years and our goal is to enable our travel agents fraternity to provide Indian consumers the best on the class tourism experiences.

Subhash Goyal Honorary Secretary, FAITH

This is a highly stressed time for the government. But, we are confident that our concerns will be addressed by the government and they will be able to prioritise a relief package for the Indian tourism, travel and hospitality from their limited resources. We are thankful to the complete membership of all our 10 member associations and all the industry who have stood together in this darkest moment of tourism and are with us now in thousands.