Ministry of Tourism (MoT), Government of India, has formulated an action plan for “Incredible India Bed & Breakfast/Home Stay Scheme”, as revealed in a PIB release. Features of the action plan are:
- To revisit the scheme guidelines and update it based on present and future requirements
- To ensure expansion of home stay scheme in states where it is already prevalent, and introduction where it is not there
- Move towards ease of doing business through rationalisation of taxes, simplification of procedures etc
- Launch an aggressive marketing strategy to enlist more bed and breakfast (B&B) establishments
- Involve online travel agents (OTAs) in promoting this scheme and bring it on the fast-track
Groups were constituted to study various aspects of this scheme and submit recommendations in a time bound manner.
MoT organised a workshop on Incredible India Bed & Breakfast/Home Stay Scheme recently, which was chaired by Vinod Zutshi, secretary, MoT and attended by officials from various state governments, representatives from hospitality and travel trade industry, CEOs of OTAs and officials of the MoT.
This workshop was conducted with the prime objective of meeting shortage of rooms in accommodation sector, especially the budget category. As construction of hotels has a long gestation period, it was felt that the desired additional hotel capacity can be supplemented substantially by giving impetus to the Incredible India Bed & Breakfast Scheme as well as similar schemes run by the state governments and OTAs.
