When the sun will rise in 2022, the Indian tourism and hospitality industry will be waking up with prayers of survival, desperately looking forward to some form of support from the government as revival from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic of the last two years will be an arduous journey, said the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) talking about the revival of the industry amidst the shadow of Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking about which Jyoti Mayal, President, TAAI said we as an industry have now come to our last resort and have adopted the mantra of ‘survival before revival’. “Just when the industry began to see a flickering light at the end of a long tunnel towards the end of 2021, the spread of the Omicron variant and subsequent extension of suspension of scheduled international passenger flights till January 31, 2022, has come as a dampener to the industry, which was looking to have some business in the winter season. We as an association of travel agents look up to the government for the flexibility of policies that at least gives our industry a chance to survive and sail through this,” she added.
“With inbound tourist arrivals unlikely amidst the pandemic, we as an industry urge to the government to incentivise domestic travels with income tax benefits for a limited period so as to help the hospitality and tourism sector get up again at least within the country,” Jay Bhatia, Vice President, TAAI.
Adding to which, Bettaiah Lokesh, HSG, TAAI commented that already 25 to 30 per cent of establishments in the organised sector comprising around 60,000 hotels and five lakh restaurants have shut shop and another 15 per cent could follow suit if there is no impetus from the government to raise the sector.
“Right now, we cannot even talk about revival because revival is to bring back something that’s gone and we as an industry stuck in the pandemic cannot even afford to think that way. All we can do is to just hope and pray and appeal to the authorities that whatever policies they may bring further they should be in resonation with our interest and boost; as 2021 draws to a close, the industry is surely in desperate hope that there shouldn’t be any repetition of the second wave scenario that we witnessed and we all could make through it safely,” mentioned Shreeram Patel, Treasurer, TAAI.
