Goyal exhorts FinMin to take steps for NE’s tourism industry

NEW DELHI, Feb 17: Renowned tourism industry captain Subhash Goyal, who took over as the new Chairman of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, the North East and Eastern region chapter, on Friday urged the Finance Ministry to take tourism-friendly steps towards this upcoming labour-intensive industry in regions like North East.
After taking over the charge, in his maiden press conference, Dr Goel told the media that the NE region has a lot of potential as far as tourism is concerned. But the Union Budget has not helped the tourism industry that gives employment to one among 11 persons.
A votary of liberal tourism policy, Dr Goel demanded that this year’s Budget should withdraw some of the steps which hamper tourism, an upcoming industry instead of helping the labour-intensive sector. “We are greatly disappointed that the TCS (Tax Collected at Source) has been increased from 5% to 20% on outbound luxury package tours which should be abolished altogether or kept static at previous level,” he said.
“This will affect mostly the middle-class people who travel abroad for holidays very badly as the cost will become very high with the already high airfare,” Dr Goel said.
This may perhaps force people to request their friends and relatives abroad to book hotels and packages for them overseas directly, thus depriving Indian Tour Operators and Travel Agents of their earnings, he added.
He also demanded that the allocation for overseas tourism promotion and publicity including Market Development Assistance (MDA) will be increased from Rs 341 crore but instead of that it has been reduced to Rs 167 crore, and that will have an adverse impact on tourism promotion. “We were also hoping that there will be an exemption on GST and other taxes based on foreign exchange earnings,” he added.
Dr Goel said the government should announce refund of GST/VAT for tourists charged for their shopping following the examples of Singapore, UK where tourists are refunded their taxes at the airport.
Services Export from India scheme should be reintroduced in view of the decline in the segment. This scheme will really help in reviving the tourism and other services export sector from the country, he added.