Parliamentary Standing Committee Recommends Reviewing of the Tax Rule Applicable to the Travel and Tourism Sector

Monday, February 7, 2022

A parliamentary standing committee has recommended that the tax rule applicable to the travel and tourism sector needs to be reviewed for increasing India’s share in the global tourism market to five percentfrom the current 1.24 percent.

The Committee on “Promotion of Indian Tourism in Overseas Markets – Role of Overseas Tourist Offices and Indian Embassies”, headed by BJP MP T G Venkatesh, said that the ministry should carry on surveys occasionally in important source markets for India. This would evaluate the impact of the publicity campaigns regarding foreign tourist visit to India, the perception of foreign tourists about the various facilities at tourist destinations, the preference of foreign tourists about the tourism products and destinations.

“The ministry should formulate an integrated marketing and promotional strategy to position India as a favoured tourism destination in the tourism generating markets overseas and increase India’s share of the global tourism market from the present 1.24 per cent to 5 per cent in the years to come. One of the major reasons for India’s inbound tourism remaining grossly under-utilised has been the high rates and multiplicity of taxes that deter inbound tourism and have led to tourist packages being out priced vis-a-vis those in competing tourist destinations of other countries,” the Committee said.

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