May 5, 2020

FAITH revises tourism loss from ₹ 5 lakh cr to ₹ 10 lakh cr

FAITH has revised its earlier estimate of the loss to India’s travel and tourism sector due to the Covid-19 crisis. The federation has doubled loss guidance on tourism from ₹ 5 lakh crores to ₹ 10 lakh crores in meeting with the empowered group -6 headed by Niti Aayog’s CEO Amitabh Kant. The apex trade body of India’s travel and tourism sector has requested the Niti Aayog CEO for immediate help from governments and RBI.

The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality, a federation of all the national associations representing the complete tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India, has revised upwards the estimate of loss that Indian tourism sector would suffer due to Covid-19 pandemic.

In a meeting with EG -6 on Monday, FAITH informed that they would like to revisit and double their earlier guidance. The earlier guidance which was calculated and was shared with the Government in March 2020 had put tourism’s economic value at risk at almost ₹ 5 lakh crores + from this pandemic. FAITH believes this value at risk could go as high as ₹ 10 lakh crores given the way tourism supply chains are breaking down in India across all its key inbound, domestic & outbound markets.

The direct and indirect economic contribution of the tourism industry in India is approximately estimated at 10% of India’s GDP. This roughly puts the full-year economic multiplier value of tourism in India at almost ₹ 20 lakh crores.

This value covers the whole tourism value chain across airlines, travel agents, hotels, tour operators, tourism destinations restaurants, tourist transporters, tourist guides etc. These are across all the segments of tourism be they leisure ( inbound, outbound, domestic) corporate travel, heritage, adventure, meetings incentives, exhibitions & events, religious and spiritual tourism and in upcoming high-value niche tourism products such as sea & river cruises, camping, rafting, golf, film tourism, jungle tourism, agritourism and many more.

Tourism has one of the largest economic multipliers. FAITH based upon its industry estimates believes, that in India given its globally unique natural and cultural heritage which is spread across the Indian hinterlands, each rupee spent on tourism could have an economic multiplier of between 2.5 – 3 times. While this is India’s global competitive advantage in tourism, this can also quickly translate into a competitive disadvantage due to this pandemic, if not supported immediately as tourism jobs are spread right across the cities to remote areas pan India.

Empowered Group -6, an inter-ministerial group of Government of India, headed by the CEO Niti Aayog carefully listened to the concerns across all the tourism verticals and assured to take it up with the Government and with the RBI.

FAITH has requested that for the revival of any demand in tourism, the tourism supply in India has to first remain intact. For the same, they have requested Niti Aayog for a COVID 19 Tourism fund of minimum ₹ 50,000 crores which can be used by tourism enterprises in India as a 10-year interest-free loan for taking care of their employees. This along with a 12 months full waiver of all banking loans & of all central and state statutory liabilities be it PF, ESi, income taxes, GST, fixed power and utility tariffs, property tax, excise, inter-state tourist transportation taxes and license fees, all without any accumulated or penal interest has to be done immediately.

FAITH communicated to EG 6 that this is the only win-win-win outcome as it will not only keep the Indian tourism industry alive for a revival, it will also keep the jobs intact and it will also protect the exposure of the banking sector to tourism preventing their loans from becoming NPAs.

The meeting was attended by the presidents of all founding associations of FAITH – ADTOI, ATOAI, FHRAI, HAI, IATO, ICPB, IHHA, ITTA, TAAI, TAFI and by WTTC.

China’s recent experiment of opening up after a minimum of 6 months lockdown saw some soft opening of Tourism and that too with very limited, short-haul domestic travel.

FAITH believes that if one goes by that example of a minimum 6-month tourism shutdown, the direct and indirect output of tourism in India will be impacted putting almost ₹ 10 lakh crores economic value at risk in the country.

FAITH for stoping the clock on all statutory payments
50% value of the almost 10% of India’s GDP from tourism at risk from collapse
The 2- month old earlier guidance on tourism value at risk doubled
Learnings from China show a minimum of 6 months of tourism shutdown before a soft opening for very short-haul domestic tourism