Tag Archives: FAITH

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.”

Sarab Jit Singh, Vice Chairman, FAITH, says, “While the service tax would increase to 60 per cent, the government has allowed input credit, which might neutralise the effect of service tax. However, I feel that inbound tourism might not be affected much because of this rule. In fact, there might be some benefit for inbound tour operators in the long run. It will be outbound tour operators, which will see the impact of this announcement. I feel that this ruling is part of government’s move towards GST. Such measures would force people to do business legitimately.

FAITH believes that levying of service charge on invoices is a healthy, cashless practice designed to motivate staff through an additional financial incentive. Levy & proportionate distribution of ‘service charges’ enable enhanced financial support to staff from lower economic groups. FAITH has requested ‘urgent’ intervention of Secretary-Tourism, Government of India, Secretary-Consumer Affairs, Deputy Secretary-Consumer Affairs, & Tourism Secretaries of all state governments, on the issue. The association has recommended a retraction to be released from MCA to secretaries – food, civil supplies & consumer protection. FAITH has opined, that service charges wherever they are levied on invoices, are pre-disclosed on the menu, where it normally says that ‘service charges & government taxes as applicable are extras’. Whenever consumers order, it is implied that they are legally aware of that food service establishment’s disclosed commercial policies and offer of sale. Service tax is thereafter, levied on service charge which is remitted to department of revenue and adds to our country’s indirect tax collections. Once they are disclosed and thereafter accepted by the consumer, it is thus not an unfair consumer practice. FAITH has voiced concern that the ‘letter ‘ by Ministry of Consumer Affairs may create confusion in the minds of diners when they eat out. Additionally, it has the potential to create an unhealthy distrust towards food service establishments among those diners who may not be able to discern distinction between service charge & service tax. Furthermore, if service charges start getting disputed by consumers, it may create unwanted litigation hotel / restaurants & department of revenue, since service tax is levied on all service charges on invoices. All in all, there is scope for large scale litigation & a …

At a recent pre-budget meeting with the Finance Ministry, FAITH proposed a tourism strategy — Holiday in India — on the lines of ‘Make in India’. FAITH has done a scenario analysis, which shows that under this strategy, Indian tourism can impact up to an estimated 12-16 crore jobs directly or indirectly from the current levels of approximately 4-5 crores. The tourism GDP can get impacted directly or indirectly up to 40 lakh crores from the current levels of around 7- 8 lakh crores. In a document released to its industry members, FAITH has said that the objective behind ‘Holiday in India’ is to make India a multi- season, multi-product, highly preferred tourist / business / conference destination for both the global and domestic tourists.

Sarabjit Singh, Vice Chairman, FAITH, reveals that tour operators are facing problems everywhere they need to pay higher amount, especially at interstate tolls, which has now been relaxed till Nov 11. “The denominations for 50 and 100 is not available in large numbers as of now. Paying monument fee turned out to be a big problem for tourists. Jaipur has made the entry complimentary for the monuments, and the same should be followed at other places. Either there should be alternate arrangements to deal with this problem, or there should be some relaxation until normalcy returns,” he adds.

The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH) has sought amendments to the draft Goods and Services Tax law that include making an exception for tourism and hospitality businesses, and classifying them under 6-8 per cent tax slab. FAITH has asked the GST commissionerate and the revenue secretary to provide an amendment under Section 2 (44)c to the tourism & hospitality industry. According to a letter from FAITH, Section 2(44)c, under the draft GST model law describes an export service as one which is rendered abroad. FAITH has put forwarded the rationale that tourism services to foreign exchange paying tourists can’t be rendered abroad as all our destinations are within India and it is an intangible product & hence an exception needs to be provided in the law itself to the tourism & hospitality industry. Once tourism & hospitality is classified as an export service, FAITH will request the GST council for a 0% rating of GST on tourism & hospitality exports. This will make our tourism industry extremely competitive globally & remove the uncompetitive 18-25% indirect taxation. FAITH will also ask the GST council for a below 10% GST rating on domestic tourism. This is in line with global practices where the introduction of GST has seen tourism GST kept at less than half the standard rate of GST. Implementation of both of these recommendations have the potential to spur our tourism forex earnings to $30-$35 billion from 13-15 million foreign tourists & has our domestic tourism to 1.8- 2 billion domestic visitations. This could double the employment induced by tourism to 9 crore jobs from 4.5 crore jobs. They have also shared their concerns with the …

The Ministry of Tourism conducted a joint discussion on July 22 with travel and hospitality associations to seek inputs and suggestions regarding the upcoming Incredible India Tourism Investor’s Summit, to be held at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, from September 21-23, 2016. Representatives of IATO, ADTOI, FAITH, PATA India Chapter, WTTC- India initiative, ITTA, ICPB, EIS, IHHA, and ESOI were present at the occasion. Vinod Zutshi, Secretary, Tourism, Government of India, sought support and suggestions of all the trade bodies for the event. He said, “The Incredible India Tourism Investors Meet is aimed at sensitising everyone. Though we are having a very high and tremendous growth in tourism arrivals, this growth needs a supply chain for better infrastructure. The ministry has decided to create an environment for investment and this is one such event, which will be led by MOT and we have Invest India on board and we have also requested the embassies of various countries. We are going to make it an annual event. We have also decided to make an investment cell which is going to continuously monitor everything about the investments. We seek cooperation of all the hospitality and travel associations and suggestions to get the right investors for the summit, right investment opportunities in the country, and also ways to move forward with the summit.”

The Ministry of Tourism has partnered with CII for the Global Travel Mart and have changed the dates of the event from January to now February 1-4, 2017, according to an engagement letter by Federation of Associations of Indian Travel and Hospitality (FAITH) sent to its members. The letter reads that FAITH was in discussion with MOT and had prepared a concept statement for the global travel mart with them. Two key highlights of that, were, if that mart were not in partnership with FAITH, then it would be competitively bid out to PCOs who have created & run world scale tourism events, so as to start off with a Big Indian Tourism Bang. The other key requisite was the hosting date of the mart, to be in the shoulder period of 10th-14th January 2017. However, as of 30th June MOT has joined hands with CII and the dates have been now shifted to February. FAITH has addressed its concerns to the ministry regarding partnering with them and its member associations, and will be discussing it again.

Expressing disappointment over the General Budget 2016-17, Sarabjit Singh, Vice Chairman, FAITH, said, “It is disappointing to see that the Union Budget has overlooked the suggestions made by tourism and hospitality sector. The Government has looked at debt and dying sectors and it seems tourism industry will be considered only when the sector is dead. This sector  has been dying for the last one year and the Government’s negligence shows that it is not an important sector. The benefits given to the start up companies shows that we, the tour operators/travel agencies may have to wind up their businesses and set up new companies to avail benefits of the start-up sector if we need any kind of government support to grow the revenue from tourism. During the last one year, the industry has met all concerned in the Government policies and most of them have agreed that tourism needs extra flip and support like Export Sector in order to increase revenue in foreign exchange, but seems all efforts gone down the drain. Tourism export is the only segment where all State & Central Taxes are imposed.”

The Buddhist Conclave will be held at Bodh Gaya from March 29-31, 2016. The conference is being organised by Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH) in collaboration with Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and Ministry of Tourism (MOT) with a view to develop the Buddhist Circuit especially in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar in India and Nepal and also look forward to foreign investments in the segment. Sarab Jit Singh, Vice Chairman, FAITH, said that it is important to understand the ground realities and deliberate on the requirements to stimulate the tourist arrivals which is hovering about 1 million foreign tourist arrivals annually to its true potential of minimum 10 million every year. The association has proposed participation of Union Ministries, state governments, religious Buddhist bodies, ambassadors of different countries to India, IRCTC, DGCA, Airports Authority of India along with stakeholders from the private sector, such as hotels, restaurants, tour operators etc. The major issues to be deliberated are international connectivity to Gaya; upgrading of Gaya International Airport; road and railway connectivity to the region; improvement of issuance of visas and facilitation at arrival and departure; aesthetic development of the area; development of proper accommodation facilities; training of local guides in various languages along with other issues. An estimate total of 250 people are expected to attend this conference.