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Double digit business travel spending growth continues for India, despite fears of fallout from the country’s demonetisation efforts, according to the latest Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) BTI™ Outlook – India report. “India continues to position itself to become a world leader in business travel for decades to come,” said Gaurav Sundaram, GBTA India’s regional director. “Despite fears surrounding the demonetisation efforts, India saw a 10.9 percent growth in year-over-year business travel spending for the second quarter of 2016 – even higher than our last report projected.” The GBTA Foundation report forecasts 11.4 percent growth in business travel spending in 2016, followed by another 11.6 percent in 2017 – both increases over our previous forecast – reaching $36.8 billion USD. India continues to climb the world rankings of business travel markets, moving up five spots during the early 2000s to become the 10th largest global business travel market at the end of 2015. Forecasts predicted India would pass Brazil last year and will likely surpass both South Korea and Italy in 2017. GBTA projects India will become the 6th largest business travel market in the world by the end of 2019. GBTA forecasts domestic business travel spending will continue to grow at consistently high rates, 11.8 percent in 2017, reaching $33.8 billion USD. India’s international outbound (IOB) business travel spending has shown subdued growth in the 5-6 percent per year range. GBTA’s IOB forecast for 2016 has been revised upward from 3.1 percent projected previously to 5.4 percent. It seems commodity prices may have finally found their footing and bottomed out, and the brightening prospects for increased trade activity, especially with the oil-rich MENA region, should help to push IOB …

The 31st edition of Surajkund International Crafts Mela is being held from February 1-15 and has gone cashless to cater to the 1.5 million crowd expected this year. The event has Jharkhand as theme state and Egypt as partner nation, as was inaugurated by Manohar Lal, Chief Minister of Haryana in the presence of Ram Bilas Sharma, Haryana Tourism Minister; Amar Kumar Bauri, Minister of Tourism and Culture, Jharkhand and Hatem Tageldin, Ambassador of Egypt to India amongst other dignitaries. This year, the organisers have tied up with BookMyShow for booking entry tickets and Mobikwik for hassle-free payment. Partner Bank – Dena Bank has also provided card swiping machines to every seller making it easy for visitors to shop. This year’s edition has an increased space of 2.5 acres with 145 more stalls this year, up from 865 last year to 1010 this year. Six ATM machines and mobile ATMs have also been facilitated, informed V S Kundu, Additional Chief Secretary, Haryana Tourism.

Guldeep Singh Sahni, President, OTOAI, says, “We were very disappointed with the budget, especially when the government has been talking about tourism being a major pillar of growth. I don’t understand how it cannot be important when budget is concerned, except for the fact that the passports can now be applied in the GPOs.” He took a poignant view on the taxation. “While this is a good move on one side, on the other hand taxing outbound tourism would make us less competitive than people sitting overseas. This will kill the industry, which is making 20 million people travelling outside India, which is not using infrastructure available across the country and still generating revenue,” he adds.

Rajan Sehgal, Chairman, TAAI- Northern Chapter, has a stern opinion on Union Budget. “For the last so many years, there has been no mention of tourism. This time as well, tourism was mentioned only for two minutes. We cannot think of growth and promotion of tourism internationally without having our house in order. No monument in India is of international standard, and people only know of the Taj Mahal, which is the only monument we can sell, which too is not tourism friendly.” On how the Budget ignored the inbound sector, Sehgal says, “Tourism brings in foreign exchange as well as creates employment. Very cleverly, the government has seen outbound tourism where they have seen two crore people are travelling, and thus they should come in the tax bracket. But they have not emphasised on inbound, which would bring the foreign exchange. They are just trying to collect tax, but they have not understood the potential of tourism. We have to have direct interaction with the Prime Minister’s Office. Tourism needs to be a very easy industry, and the tax should be simplified in this sector. Other countries follow this and are booming.”

Sarab Jit Singh, Vice-Chairman, FAITH, appreciated the Finance Minister for taking cognizance of FAITH’s recommendations. “The positive in today’s budget is acceptance and announcement by the Finance Minister of creating five special tourism zones, which was FAITH’s recommendation. Secondly, the announcement for Incredible India branding to be relaunched internationally and 35 per cent increase for its allocation is also a positive from our perspective,” he says. He goes on to explain the flip side. “The negative point according to me is the fact that the government is saying that exports are going down. However, tourism is the only industry which can now bring foreign exchange and generate employment, and the only incentives we were getting from were from the Ministry of Commerce, whose total allocation in the budget has now been reduced. Thus, it is a counterproductive feature. If the government wants to increase imports and wants growth, they cannot have lesser allocation for commerce ministry.” He contemplates on the status of tourism industry post this budget and says, “Tourism in the country is not growing for many years. We have lost for decades together; we have lost marketplace completely internationally; as well as we have lost to competing countries. Until the government moves all the aspects together with full force, we will not have results. I agree that the Prime Minister should talk to the industry directly.”

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while presenting Budget 2017-18 announced that the government will establish five special tourism zones in the next financial year. “Tourism is a big employment generator and has a multiplier impact on the economy. Five special tourism zones anchored on SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) will be set up in partnership with the states,” Jaitley said on Wednesday. Other key takeaways for the tourism industry with respect to the Railway Budget are dedicated tourism/pilgrimage trains, 500 stations to be made differently-abled friendly, Coach Mitra facility to be introduced and bio-toilets for all coaches by 2019, offer competitive ticket-booking facility and no service charge for tickets booked on IRCTC, and new metro rail policy to be announced soon. In a boost to infrastructure development, Jaitley announced allocation of Rs 64,000 crore for national highways. He also announced Rs 2 trillion for transport sector. Jaitley has also announced that Head Post Offices will now be used as the front office for passport services.

Albert Tjoeng, Assistant Director, Corporate Communications, Asia Pacific at International Air Transport Association (IATA),  takes heart from the Union Budget. “The Finance bill 2017 has added new provisions for the future introduction of submission of PNR data by airlines to the Indian Customs, he says. He adds that IATA hopes that the established global standards for transmission of PNRGOV data would be adhered to. “We would also urge that stakeholder consultations precede the development of any regulations detailing the form and data elements for this information,” he concludes.

Vikram Madhok, Managing Director, Abercrombie & Kent India, says that the budget really has not taken tourism into much consideration. “Yes, a lot has been said about the railways in the budget and we welcome any other infrastructure investment, but there is not much that is going to help the industry directly. This year’s budget has nothing much for tourism,” he added.

IATO President Pronab Sarkar says budget did not give any encouragement to the tourism industry. “There was no mention of the tourism industry, and no benefits or plus points were announced. Apart from speaking about five tourism circuits and second phase of the Incredible India campaign, nothing else was mentioned.” Detailing their expectations and the disappointment that followed, Sarkar says, “We were expecting e-visa changes to be applicable, which were announced in December. The Prime Minister is talking about branding India and mentioning tourism amongst the five pillars, but no one has looked into the prospects of this Industry. Thus, the government needs to be sensitised. As association, we tried seeking appointment with him and did write to him on Twitter, but haven’t heard from anyone as yet.”

P.P. Khanna, President, ADTOI, says, “The Union Budget didn’t directly focus on tourism, but was more directed at the rural sector, youth and infrastructure. However, there was a mention of the Global Incredible India campaign. Also, the proposal of developing India International Institutes for foreign languages would really benefit the tourism industry, and would offer employment to almost 1 lakh students graduating from these institutes every year. The dedication towards Clean India and Skill India would also result in a boost to tourism and creating employment in this sector, and boosting domestic tourism.” He highlighted another positive which is the waiving off of Service Charge on IRCTC bookings. “The focus on rural tourism might lead to better infrastructure and education in these areas, which in turn would help bring tourists to these areas as well. However, the effect of all these things would only be seen in three to five years.”