IATO flags visa, GST issues affecting inbound during its members meet; marks 7 core discussion areas

The key points include strengthening IATO’s visibility, marketing and promotion of India, new member initiatives, skill and capacity building, membership growth, addressing members’ concerns, and preparations for the 41st IATO Annual Convention.

The Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) held its luncheon meeting on July 8 at Radisson Hotel, MG Road, Delhi. The event brought together the association members and the executive committee leading the discussions around seven key areas. 

IATO President, Ravi Gosain highlighted that visibility and getting well recognised within the ministry, government and on state level, stays the foremost objective of IATO, while it continues to take up and talk about the important matters surrounding tourism sector.

“Marketing and promotion have been a very burning subject,” mentioned Gosain, saying despite of geopolitical situations, IATO has put in the best of efforts to revive inbound and also putting forth the support request to MoT Secretary.  

“Unfortunately, they do not have any financial budgets for marketing. Time for us to think beyond what we can do as an association,” he added, mentioning about the IATO roadshow initiative. Notably, IATO had planned out a calendar of Namaste India roadshows for 2026-27 covering ASEAN markets, France, Switzerland, Ireland, the UK, Japan, Korea, Italy, Spain and China. To support the effort, IATO has asked the Ministry to write to state tourism secretaries and Indian missions abroad seeking cooperation for these events, which the Ministry has initiated. He added that the roadshows would now include hotels, airlines and other India-based travel products alongside DMCs, to widen the buyer base beyond operators already working with DMCs.

Gosain also said IATO had taken up a GST anomaly with the Ministry of Finance after the omission of clause (b) of sub-section 8 of Section 13 of the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, under Section 157 of the Finance Act 2026, a change members flagged could affect the 5% GST treatment for inbound tour operators. IATO said it had engaged GST consultants and written to the Ministry of Finance via the Ministry of Tourism seeking clarification, with the matter still pending.

On convention proceedings, Gosain also informed the members on a tentative press meet in August in Delhi with the Andhra Pradesh tourism minister and the IATO delegation. He also extended invitation for the upcoming FAITH Conclave scheduled on July 16. 

Also speaking at the event, Sunil Mishra, Hony. Secretary, IATO, informed that the association had been resolving member grievances relating to hotels, guides, visas and transporters on a near-daily basis and had achieved a 99% success rate. 

The association has set its focus on seven key points since its last member meet. The key points include strengthening IATO’s visibility, marketing and promotion of India, new member initiatives, skill and capacity building, membership growth, addressing members’ concerns, and ongoing preparations for the 41st IATO Annual Convention. Notably, the convention is scheduled to take place from September 10 to 13, 2026 in Visakhapatnam, Andhra and the association has also unveiled this year’s theme: “India: The World’s Next Tourism Opportunity”. About 1000 delegates are expected to attend. Mishra said that a delegation led by Gosain had also met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to formally invite him to the Annual Convention.

Adding in further details, Mishra noted that a nearly two-hour meeting with Tourism Secretary had secured an in-principle agreement to route leads and queries from the Ministry’s own tourism packages page to IATO's website. On which Gosain also confirmed that IATO’s tour-package query page has been linked to the “Plan a Trip” section of the Incredible India website, a facility still being finalised by the Ministry's IT team.

The association had also written to Union Tourism & Culture Minister, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat proposing a more structured, meeting-driven approach to India’s participation in international trade shows, and to the Department of Financial Services seeking inclusion of tourism and hospitality in a proposed credit guarantee scheme.

Mishra reiterated that IATO had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a dedicated government budget for overseas tourism promotion, joint marketing campaigns involving missions and state tourism boards, and incentives for inbound operators. On GST, IATO had separately sought a circular from the Ministry on the applicability of GST to inbound tour packages, through Additional Secretary and Director General Tourism, Suman Billa IAS and CBIC member, Sanjay Mangal.

The association has also written to the airlines for commencing international flights to Veer Savarkar International Airport, Port Blair, in view of complete waiver of landing charges and zero parking for ATMs by the government of India to boost tourism in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

IATO also shared about its AI workshop programme, led by Vijey Sarathi, which trained more than 500 people across cities including Kochi, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Varanasi and Jaipur, with a larger Delhi cohort planned next. 

On membership, the association has waived 50% of the admission fee for operators in Bihar, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh and the northeastern states, and waived the fee entirely for Andhra Pradesh ahead of the September convention. Other key pointers highlighted included the POSH awareness workshop, chapter meetings in Odisha, Gujarat, Bihar, Assam and Jammu & Kashmir, AI-training session in Jaipur, members’ FAM trip to Meghalaya and special negotiated member rates from roughly 25 hotel chains. 

The floor discussion surfaced several operational concerns. One of the members raised the continued challenges of issuing Indian visas to Hong Kong travellers. The IATO’s office-bearers linked the issue to the broader India-China visa relationship, saying Chinese visa processing times had improved from roughly four months to 20-30 days following recent high-level meetings and said they expect further movement within a month or two.

Another member, Nitin Sambhi of Terra Inbound flagged the added compliance burden of a new Ebola-declaration form layered on top of existing visa and digital arrival card processes and separately raised an 18% GST now applicable on fees and commissions paid to overseas sales representatives. IATO assured it had raised the sales-rep GST issue with the Ministry of Commerce and would follow up in writing on the Ebola form.

From EC, Raj Bajaj, Chairman of Perfect Travels and Adventure World, highlighted that the National Tourism Policy made no provision for accessible infrastructure for the roughly 16% of the world’s population living with disabilities and asked IATO to press hotels and transporters to build in accessible inventory at the planning stage rather than after construction. National Tourism Policy, while not being actioned currently by the Centre, stands as a priority for the industry.

Another member raised driver safety, noting the absence of enforced duty-hour limits for tourist vehicle drivers in India compared with markets such as Japan, the US and Europe; to this, IATO extended assurance of taking the matter to Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

The Luncheon meeting concluded with a vote of thanks by Rajnish Kaistha, Senior Vice President of IATO and was chaired by Sanjay Razdan, Vice President of IATO; Deepak Bhatnagar, Hony. Treasurer of IATO; Rajiv Mehra, Immediate Past President of IATO and Viney Tyagi, Hony. Joint Secretary.