The Federation of Association in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH) members have deliberated among themselves and have come out with common proposals for Union Budget 2014-15, which have been submitted with Sumit Bose, Secretary Finance – Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
In a letter to Parvez Dewan, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Sarab Jit Singh, Vice Chairman, FAITH, said, “We are forwarding herewith the suggestions made by FAITH for Union Finance Budget 2014-15 and will request you to kindly take these points into consideration, while making the ministry’s budget proposals to Ministry of Finance. This is the first ever effort by the travel, tourism, transport and hospitality industry that we put the proposals together and we are certain that this single voice will definitely have its impact.”
The suggestions state that tourism has the potential to address five stated priorities of the Government of India.
1. It will immediately and directly increase our foreign exchange and address our current account deficit.
2. It will directly boost our employment of both skilled and unskilled workforce pan India and enable them to provide for the economic sustenance of their families with respect.
3. It will encourage the inclusion of and alignment of our rural and remote hinterlands to our mainland and make them part of one growth story of India.
4. Tourism will encourage national integration, pride and feeling of oneness.
5. Tourism will create global branding of India and create diplomatic bridges to different regions of the world.
All of this is possible. But there are many things which need to be addressed to unshackle and unleash India’s true potential in global tourism. These cover infrastructure, taxes, security, land availability and much more. These will and are being addressed and will take their own gestation period. But the Union Finance Budget of the Government of India has the opportunity to address and unlock each and most of these shackles through its policy actions.
To enable that, the budget recommendations for the tourism and hospitality sector to the Government of India (GOI) are being proposed keeping four themes in mind which has the potential to address key macroeconomic issues while creating economic and social wealth pan India for the masses.
1. Tourism will be able to spur the growth of foreign exchange into the country enabling the Government to address the reduce in current account deficit on a sustainable basis.
2. Tourism has the potential to add to the growth of our GDP through consumption growth within India.
3. Tourism has the potential to add to the growth of our GDP through infrastructure driven growth.
4. GOI has the opportunity to demonstrate leadership by example to the states through developmental measures.
The budget recommendations under each of these four themes are:
Theme 1 – Spur the growth of ready source of foreign exchange to reduce our current account deficit
1. Create competitive tourism exports
2. Incredible India sub brands turning comparative advantage to competitive advantage
3. India the meeting and melting pot of global knowledge
Theme 2 – Spur Indian GDP through tourism consumption growth from the huge Indian masses
1. Domestic tourism the next mega story
2. Principle of no double taxation of services
3. Seamless indian tourism experience
Theme 3 – Spur Indian GDP through infrastructure driven growth
1. Budget hospitality infrastructure
2. Hospitality infrastructure tax free bonds – the new investment asset
3. Funding and incentive support to MSME driven tourism infrastructure
4. Depreciation benefits for CAPEX for global standards of physical assets
5. Mega tourism zones
Theme 4 – Demonstrate leadership in action to the state governments by building role model policies
1. Sensitise the internal people chain to the athithi
2. Skill the supply chain
3. Reserve for relief
“It is thus suggested that Reserve for Relief of Rs. 100 crores to start with be created which can provide the corpus for immediate relief to such destinations,” the document concluded.
