With Prime Minister, Narendra Modi extending the lockdown through May 3, tourism and hospitality stakeholders in India are looking at domestic tourism to turnaround sagging fortunes. The initial 21-day lockdown was due to be lifted on Tuesday (April 14).
There are also apprehensions in the market that inbound as well as outbound tourism will take a backseat once the restrictions are eased or lifted.
“People will be apprehensive about travelling long haul especially internationally. In this backdrop, we have to see what can be done to promote tourism. I think the focus has to be on domestic tourism. This is the time that Ministry of Tourism and State tourism departments should brainstorm how to take domestic tourism ahead once the situation normalizes,” said Ashwani Lohani, Chairman, Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation while speaking at a recent webinar organized by the Bird Group.
As per a section of the industry, the lockdown is bound to take a toll on the people and once the pandemic is over, they would want to experience life through travel.
“For international tourism both business and leisure travel to normalize and to start growing, the larger world economy needs to start healing. Domestic tourism will be the only focus area for the first few quarters once the pandemic is over. Moreover, considering that India is a key outbound market, there is a good opportunity to attract this segment to domestic destinations,” said Sarbendra Sarkar, Founder & Managing Director, Cygnett Hotels and Resorts.
Domestic tourism is already considered as the backbone of India’s tourism and hospitality industry by many industry insiders. As per the statistics available with Ministry of Tourism, India recorded 1854.93 domestic tourists visits in 2018, a growth of 11.9 percent over the previous year. These numbers look staggering when compared to 10.56 million international tourist arrivals recorded in 2018.
“The moratorium of three months would provide the much-needed relief for the hospitality sector in India provided banks/NBFCs approve it unanimously with no condition precedent following the RBI move. However, businesses working on rental models with private owners have not received any benefit which might act as a deterrent to operators at large. We expect the situation to improve once cases of Covid-19 slow down and believe that the domestic tourism industry shall grow at a better rate,” said Anurag Dua, Co-founder and COO, Amatra Hotels and Resorts.
A section of the industry also stressed that the Indian government should offer incentives to promote domestic tourism. “The revival of our industry will begin if the government incentivizes domestic travel because this segment will be the first to open business prospects for us. We have already requested the authorities to provide incentives to corporates for holding MICE events in India,” said Jyoti Mayal, President, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI).
On the other hand, in spite of the challenges post the national lockdown, the industry has fully supported the government’s decisions to curb the spread of Coronavirus in the country.
Dr Ankur Bhatia, Executive Director, Bird Group said, “I applaud our Prime Minister’s decision to extend the lockdown as I firmly believe that life is more important than livelihood. Only when the infections are curtailed totally, would the people feel confident enough to start travelling again and in availing hospitality services.”