Category Archives: Associations

Rajesh Mudgill, Hony. Secretary, IATO has informed that Ministry of Tourism has proposed a new category called green shoots or stand-ups for granting recognition to start-ups. “Anyone starting a new business will be able to apply for MOT recognition without any specific capital or turnover requirement. This can earn them a provisional recognition valid for 3 years,” he said.

The Tour Operators and Travel Agents Association of Gujarat (TAG) has initiated a campaign to promote domestic tourism. A five-member team from TAG will embark on a historical 36-day road trip across India, starting off from Surat on September 18. The team will cover around 18,000 kms visiting 34 states and UT capitals (except Andaman & NicoBar and Lakshadweep) while showcasing their landmark monuments and Covid-ready hotels. Pankaj Gupta, President, TAG, shared that the team will be led by Rajiv Shah of Surat-based agency Network Tours & Travels. They will essentially cover around 500kms per day. The entire trip is largely self-sponsored.

The Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Sanjeev Sanyal, said during a webinar for FHRAI members, “We have, through the one-time loan restructuring option, offered to alleviate the financial burden on businesses. If for any reason this provision is not working, then the government wants to take your feedback and work on an action-plan to make it work. If this means that the banks, for some reason have displayed inhibition in co-operating with the businesses trying to avail of the government’s scheme, then we will take necessary action to rectify it.”

Subhash Goyal, Secretary General, FAITH, has revealed that the Association is in discussion with Ministry of Tourism to host a hybrid ITM by the end of this year. He said, “One interaction with the government has happened; and we are still in the progress of deciding how we are going to conduct it, whether it will be entirely virtual or hybrid. However, we will have ITM by the end of this year and we hope to announce the exact dates very soon.”

The 36th IATO Annual Convention scheduled to be held in Ahmedabad in September 2020 has been postponed for a year due to COVID-19 situation and is now scheduled to be hosted in September 2021 at the same venue. New dates of the convention will be finalised in due course and will be decided mutually by IATO and Gujarat Tourism.  

The Confederation of Kerala Tourism Industry (CKTI) led by EM Najeeb has called on the government to take immediate steps to reopen the tourism sector in Kerala without further delays. Najeeb added that if the crisis continues, the vast majority of enterprises in the region will face serious repercussions in the near future. The tourism sector, which has been in crisis since travel restrictions were imposed globally in last February, has been completely shut down with the lockdown imposed in India by March 24. More than 15 lakh people directly and 20 lakh people indirectly working in the tourism sector of the state and being the highest-earning industrial service sector in the state. Tourism is the highest income-earning sector with more than 45000 Crores and contributing around 12% to the state GDP in 2019. Excluding expatriate investment, it is one of the most lucrative foreign exchange earning sectors in the country and more than 20000 local investors and entrepreneurs are working in this sector with the support of bank loans and other financial institutions support. Central and State Governments should be prepared to take wartime measures to rescue the sector from the more damaging situation and intervene to restart the regular business with adequate safety and health control measure for the return of the tourism sector and lives of lakhs of people is, directly and indirectly, working travel, tourism and hospitality sector. At a time when the tourism industry is on the verge of literally collapsing as one of the state’s highest income earning industrial sectors and excluding NRI investment, the country is literally on the verge of collapse. CKTI President EM Najeeb requested. Based on unlock 4 declared by …

In today’s FHRAI webinar with Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, Government of India suggested FHRAI to put forth their general problems along with other Associations like CII and FICCI. The main problem that Association addressed pertains to restructuring of loans and extending the moratorium period. They also said that onetime restructuring which was allowed till March 31 is not taken very seriously. Sanyal said that the restructuring guidelines addressed in KV Kamanth Committee will not be considered in a normal account, banks may not be taking the guidelines seriously but RBI is. Plus, he suggested that it is important to focus on the schemes that are already existing in the framework and push it forward. Association also requested that moratorium should continue until the situation is better and banks could get a solution. They also mentioned that Amitabh Kant is making some progress in deal with Saudi Arabia for a new credit line. To which Sanyal said that funds is not a problem, economy is doing good, there is liquidity in the market, the task is how to leverage it.

An estimated USD 4.5 to 5 billion of funding will be required to overcome this crisis, mostly for airlines. Excluding IndiGo, the cash position of the industry as on 31-Mar-2020 was just USD 200 million (IndiGo had USD 1.36bn). The current low oil prices and excess liquidity, both globally and in India, would ordinarily have been positive for the sector. But the industry will not be able to fully benefit or raise funds due to structural issues.

The state has issued a directive that allows all hotels and lodges to operate at 100 per cent capacity from September 2, 2020. Separate SOPs will be issued for necessary precautions to be taken while operating these establishments. Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, President, Hotel & Restaurant Association of Western India, says, “We are happy that the government has allowed 100 per cent capacity utilisation for hotels in the state. Meanwhile, since restaurants are not included in the current negative list, it is understood that restaurants are also allowed to re-open like those that have re-opened in the rest of the country. We have sought clarification on this from the government. Also, we had hoped that it would relax the limit of 50 people at social gatherings, especially for weddings. We had requested that this be based on the size of the venue.”

Manish Kriplani, MD, Baywatch Travels, has launched Baywatch Stayzz, which include serviced luxury villas and houses for rent. “There was a huge void of having luxury full-service villas, where travellers can relax with having dedicated butler service, and housekeeper, chef and other resources at their disposal. We found that there was demand and availability for the same, which was a great prospect. We have 9 villas as of now and we plan to have 50 such villas in the next 2-3 months in Chennai. While some villas we are obtaining on lease, some are on revenue share, while for others we are only doing sales & marketing. While we have made PDF brochures now, we are preparing a very robust e-commerce website portal, where we are going to host all these villas and which will have all the information about them.”