Ratna Chadha, CEO, TIRUN Travel Marketing & member of CII committee for Cruise Tourism says, “We are expecting Budget 2018 to bring significant respite to the highly taxed travel and tourism industry and grow both domestic as well as international tourism. The potential of India as a cruising hub needs to be recognised and the sector needs to be given an aggressive boost to realize its ability as a significant contributor to India’s economy and foreign reserves. The government has been taking considerable amount of steps in this direction and we look forward to 2018’s Budget to amplify them even further. We hope that 2018 marks the year when India begins its journey to emerge as an International cruising hot-spot and motivate national travelers to explore beautiful destinations on-board the most fascinating ships.”
Indroneel Dutt, CFO, Cleartrip said, “The budget of 2018 after the watershed legislation of GST reforms is expected to set a positive tone for the travel market through the broader plan to upgrade existing airport and rail infrastructure for better connectivity and investments in overall furtherance of digitization. Our industry is still getting their arms around the nuances of GST and the hope is that a simplification of the reporting requirements and specifically optimization of taxes on accommodation space on the higher end luxury segment will propel domestic tourism.”
Manheer Singh Sethi, co-founder Travkart said, “The Economy Tourism is expected to get a boost with the Union Budget 2018 in the next month. Contributing 9.6 per cent of the GDP and 9.3% of the total employment of the country, tourism has been on high with 18 per cent jump in the foreign tourist arrival from September 2016 to 2017 in the same period. We expect some robust steps to promote tourism which is expected to generate 10 million more jobs. Lowering the GST and financial support in the advertisement to promote tourism are few out of many expectations of the trade. The dream of our PM to make a Digital India is accelerating & our trade has always supported such initiatives by the government and the same is obvious with an upsurge in the online bookings, tickets and digital payments. We are poised to take the tourism industry ahead to be the biggest contributor in GDP and employment across the country and this vision requires support from the central government which has always spoken well of and supported tourism.”
Varun Gupta, CEO Goomo, India’s leading Omni Channel Travel Tech Platform said, “We are looking forward to the Union Budget on the 1st of February this year and are hoping to look for significant announcements to support Travel and Tourism sector by reduction in taxes and providing more incentives to the US$ 35 billion sector thereby boosting economic growth that will help in creating more jobs. We are expecting that the input credit will be allowed in this sector even at the 5 per cent GST rate. Also, anticipate clarity from the Government on the recent announcement to provide marketing support to the Travel Agents promoting Incredible India. With scores of new air routes and introduction of new airports last year under the UDAN Scheme, will further help boost the air travel and tourism sector. Undoubtedly, international and domestic travel are attaining new heights and the industry is on the go to gradually tap its vast potential.”
Mr PR Bansal, chairman & managing director, Lords Hotels & Resorts said, “Globally, a majority of the tourism countries levy a tax on hospitality which is an average 10 per cent lower than the GST here. Our hope is that the upcoming Union Budget reduces this gap at least between our neighbouring tourism countries and us. Other than this, presently we have a slab-wise GST rates of 0, 12, 18 and 28 per cents based on the published tariffs for a room. We request that the Government dissolves this structure of tiered GST rates and makes it a uniform rate of maybe, 12 per cent. The Govt. has been making efforts towards the promotion of tourism and hospitality in the country and while this is evident, there is much room for improvement in the tourism infrastructure. The budget should allocate dedicated funds to facilitate connectivity by air and roads to the tier 2 and tier 3 cities. We realize this need well as many of our hotel properties are located in these cities and towns. Ease of access with good connectivity to these places will definitely increase the tourist foot-falls and even generate employment in the sector. Lastly, while the GST is a landmark tax reform and we acknowledge that the Govt. has been working towards fine tuning the on-ground nuances; further simplification will be much appreciated.
The Govt. has in-principal agreed to work towards the ease of doing business and also may have implemented certain aspects of it, but the hotel industry has not yet seen any tangible benefits. Besides the implementation is not uniform across all States and the regulatory processes create hurdles in both staring and operating a hotel. The introduction and implementation of the Single Window Clearance for hospitality should help reduce the turnaround times for obtaining permissions, and licences among other mandated authorizations. The Single Window Clearance for hospitality could prove to be a boon to the sector.”