Address the supply shortages to meet the growing demand in the tourism sector; Suman Billa, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Tourism Government of India

While a burgeoning economy, rising incomes and growing aspirations have created an unprecedented demand for tourism, the problem is that the supply, in terms of number of hotels, tourist infrastructure etc, is not keeping pace with tourist demand. The challenge is to kickstart supply to take advantage of the window of opportunity in the sector. This was stated by Mr Suman Billa, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Tourism Government of India during the session on Ease of Doing Business, at the 18th CII Annual Tourism Summit 2024 with a tagline of ‘Can Tourism be the Game Changer for India?’ organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), at New Delhi today.

Elaborating further, Mr Billa enunciated a three-pronged strategy for the states to improve supply and create a flourishing tourism sector. First is for the Ministry of Finance and RBI to provide the infrastructure status to the sector which would offer credit at cost effective rates and with longer repayment period; second is to rationalise development norms across states such as FSI etc and third is to facilitate ease of doing business by simplifying clearances and making them time bound.

While international tourism is rising, it is well below domestic tourism and the challenge is to increase the footprint of international travellers who come for business, leisure and shopping.  While Indian embassies have been given the mandate to promote India as a travel destination, a plan of action is required to make it a success, he stated.

He also informed that infrastructure projects would be given to the states in the challenge mode and incentives would be based on investments made by the states.

Mr Harshavardhan Neotia, Chairman, Ambuja Neotia Group, during the discussion, mentioned that tourism policy varies across states. A model tourism policy should be created by the Centre and states should be incentivised to adopt the policy. This would help easing compliances across states, he maintained.   

Mr Sanjay Sethi, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Chalet Hotels opined that the infrastructure status to be provided to the industry should be looked at from the perspective of CRZ policy for hotel development. He mentioned that the CRZ policy for coastal states is restrictive and should be reviewed.

He went on to inform that outbound tourism by the domestic traveller far exceeds domestic tourism and leads to foreign exchange outgo. Hence, going forward, there is a case for some restrictions on outbound tourism. He even went to the extent of suggesting that outbound tourism should be suitably taxed, and the resources generated be used to promote inbound tourism. He also espoused private sector partnership in promoting tourism and highlighted the potential of women in the sector. Further, he said that major cities in India should be linked by direct flights to the East and West Coast of the US. 

Mr Anil Chadha, Chief Executive, ITC Hotels, felt that leisure tourism is the way forward for India. India’s story on food is amazing and every location is versatile in terms of food and language which should be built upon. Similarly, India has sufficient capacity in MICE tourism with world class facilities provided by conference centres such as Yashobhoomi, Bharat Mandapam etc.

Ms Ashmita Joshi, Head Public Policy-India & Southeast Asia, Airbnb India Pvt. Ltd. spoke extensively on homestays. She stated that homestay policy is presently restricted to six states and a policy which would provide a national framework on homestays is being worked upon in association with NITI Aayog. Goa is a model state for homestays, she averred.

18 December 2024

New Delhi