Tourism Breaking News
Suman Billa (IAS), Joint Secretary, MOT and Chairman ICPB, recently revealed at a meeting that they are taking steps to facilitate easier MICE movement. He adds, “We had already opened the e-Conference visa earlier but that was only open for events that were organised by the government and for the PSUs, so now the door has been opened for the private sector as well. It is open to all private conferences. However, if there are some listed countries, and if you have delegates from those countries you need to take special permission for them. Also, we understand that GST is high, especially if you are dealing with a price sensitive and cost competitive industry like the MICE segment. We are also trying to get the GST reduced, hopefully we will be able to do away with the 28 per cent slab. We are also planning to have a bidding corpus, if there are conferences where you need go out and bid for, to help sweeten the deal with a certain amount of money we will put on the table to better the opportunity. We are thinking this should be done with a collaboration with the states on a matching basis. In the next four to five months, we should be having this ready. ”
On ICPB he said, “We have been working on the idea to restructure ICPB for some time. We had commissioned this study a while ago, but we are also picking up from there. We have already changed the constitution and are bringing it in line with the recommendations of this report.”
On the same Chander Mansharamani – Vice Chairman, ICPB added , “The marketing role of ICPB will be emphasized and that it should be able to bid for international conferences. Also, we have opened up the categories of memberships to include individual entrepreneurs, associations, as well.”
