The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India has suggested various measures and sought the government’s intervention for the revival and growth of the hospitality industry.
The recommendations include making tourism a priority sector, according infrastructure status to hospitality industry, ensure better credit facilities, subsidies and incentives, rationalisation of GST, continuation of EPCG scheme, favourable liquor licence policies and the need for a platform similar to Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) for hospitality industry, among others.
FHRAI (Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India) has recently met Union tourism minister G Kishan Reddy and submitted a representation with these suggestions.
“To commemorate 75 years of India’s independence, we are proposing that FHRAI and its associations with the support of the tourism ministry would like to highlight and host 75 regional cuisines in each of the food festivals, said Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, vice president, FHRAI.
India’s tourism sector is one of the largest service industries, which saw 10.93 million foreign tourist arrivals and USD 30 billion foreign exchange earnings in 2019.
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The sector has been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in the last two years, affected roughly 60 to 70 per cent of its revenue, FHRAI said.
The tourism and hospitality industry in India carries an extensive potential to be the key driver to accelerate socio-economic development of the country. To achieve this, tourism should be declared as a priority sector in the country with special incentives and benefit to help the sector attain its true potential, said Kohli.
