NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Tourism has the National Council for Applied Economic Research Prahlad Patel, Minister of Tourism and Culture of the Union, said the results of the study are expected to carry out a study on “Pandemic in India and Coronavirus: Economic Loss for Households Engaged in Tourism and Measures for Recreation”. Given the evolving situation, the results of the study are awaited.
In Lok Sabha, Patel responded to questions about the impact of the pandemic on tourism and the resulting job losses raised by Congressmen Rahul Gandhi and Karti Chidambaram, Thomas Chazhikadan of Kerala Congress (M) and Bhartruhari Mahtab of BJD.
The minister said international arrivals fell by about 97% between December 2019 and 2020, with only 470 international arrivals in April 2020 compared to 7.74 lakh in April 2019 and 79,910 in December 2020 compared to 12, 26 lakh international arrivals in December 2019. In order to mitigate the effects of the drastic slowdown, in addition to promoting domestic tourism as part of the Aatma Nirbhar Bharat package, the ministry has expanded tax and relief measures for the tourism industry, the collateral-free automatic loans worth 3 Billion rupees included MSMEs have a three-month PF fee waiver for organizations with fewer than 100 employees and an exemption from complying with legal requirements under various laws.
However, the tourism sector claimed it was disappointed that the government had not provided direct assistance to the tourism and travel industry despite repeated requests for assistance. On Friday the Association of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) wrote to PM Narendra Modi asking for an appointment to convey their complaints.
FHRAI conveyed “dismay and disappointment at the gross neglect of the hospitality sector in the budget” and said it was shocked to cut the budget allocation for the Ministry of Tourism by 19% “at a time when the sector is facing its worst crisis.” Tourism”.
“In the absence of an industry-specific stimulus package, at least 30 to 40% of restaurants and 20 to 30% of hotels in the country face imminent business closings, leading to millions of job losses,” FHRAI said in a statement.
FHRAI Vice President Gurbaxish Singh Kohli said: “We are really disappointed to see that tourism and hospitality – the biggest victim of the COVID19 pandemic – have been continuously ignored by the government since the pandemic broke out. It wasn’t even mentioned in the Finance Minister’s budget. ”
Emphasizing that the travel and tourism sector accounts for 10% of India’s GDP and supports around 90 million jobs, industry giants such as travel aggregators, tour operators and hotel associations had announced that they face an uncertain future and remain confident that the government urgently needs it will provide industry-specific relief.

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