Category Archives: MOT

Highlighting the importance of safety, the Union Minister remarked that the Government of India is focused on ensuring the safety and wellbeing of tourists travelling in India and is formulating and implementing Uniform Tourist Police for providing a safe and secure environment to the tourists. G.K Reddy also said that India is appointing nodal officers in the Indian Missions abroad of the top 20 source countries. Union Minister further said that the National Digital Tourism Mission (NDTM) is being formulated to ensure the digitalisation of the Tourism sector in Mission Mode and India has built  many large scale Digital Public  Infrastructure such as Aadhar for Identity and UPI for real-time payments.

New flight search data from KAYAK shows that flight searches over the last six months for India in 2023 have surpassed pre-pandemic levels, growing by about 29% compared to the same period in 2019. The US has long been one of India’s most prominent tourism sources, with searches for flights until the end of this year growing about 21% compared to the same pre-pandemic period. Increases in flight searches from other European countries are also very positive, with the UK having a spike in flight searches of about 48%.

Addressing the 1st Tourism Working Group Meeting under G20 hosted by the Ministry of Tourism, Union Minister for Culture, Tourism and DoNER G.K Reddy said, “India is focused on using tourism as a vehicle for achieving sustainable development goals during India’s G20 Presidency. The soul of India lives in its villages and self-reliant villages will lead to a self-reliant India. Tourism has the potential for generating maximum number of jobs with least investment and therefore tourism can be a positive force for economic transformation, rural development and community well-being.”

Arvind Singh, Secretary Tourism, said that the two side events of the first Tourism Working Group Meeting of G-20 will be focusing on rural tourism and promotion of archaeological tourism. He said, “Rural tourism has a high potential to stimulate local economic growth, social change, and inclusive community development.”  

Ministry of Tourism will organize its first Tourism Working Group meeting from 7-9 February 2023 in Rann of Kutch, Gujarat. Secretary of Tourism, Arvind Singh said that in G20, there are 5 interrelated priority areas for tourism. Accordingly, the thrust will be on these five priority areas i.e. greening of the tourism sector, harnessing the power of digitisation, empowering youth with skills, nurturing tourism MSMEs/ startups, and rethinking the strategic management of destinations. 

Arvind Singh, Secretary Tourism, has informed that they are doing an Adventure Tourism summit during G20 as a side event. “The idea behind this summit will be to bring the focus of all international operators to India and show them the products in adventure. We are planning to bring 100 overseas operators for the same and ATOAI is working on the details for the same,” he said. 

Arvind Singh, Secretary, Tourism, said that the MOT is very happy with the increased focus and attention on tourism. “All the stakeholders—central government, state government and private sector, will have to work together to take the mission that the PM has for the sector, to take it forward.”

According to the document shared by the Finance Ministry, the budget outlay for overseas promotion and publicity, including MDA, ₹167crores , which is less than 50% of the outlay announced in FY2022-23 (₹341cr). However, the revised outlay was eventually was ₹60cr for both overseas and domestic promotions.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of Bharat Parv in New Delhi, Union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy, said “India has been able to succesfully counteract the pandemic impact as over 2-crore tourists visited Jammu and Kashmir, and many people are also visiting North East states of India.”

In the Union Budget 2023, it was announced that the government has increased Tax Collection at Source (TCS) for overseas packages from 5%to 20%. Riaz Munshi, President, OTOAI, says that instead of reducing the TCS, it has been increased and it will hamper the business. Rajeev Sabharwal  (CA), Chief Executive, Gaurav Travels, says outbound industry should oppose this move.