With a 10% contribution to the GDP, over 15% towards employment and foreign exchange earnings of Rs 211,661 crore in 2019, the case is ripe to seek the way forward for inbound, a segment that lies devastated by the pandemic.
At the outset, there is the need for image building and reputation management and let the world know that destinations are safe, secure with hygiene & SOPs in place coupled with seamless connectivity and 180 crores vaccinations done. The Ministry of Tourism along with the stakeholders, national and international media to lead the way. Social media vehicles will catalyse the efforts. Bloggers, Influencers and foreign media to be invited on a fully hosted FAM by the Government of India so that their articles & stories catch the interest of the discerning traveller.
Scheduled International flights need to commence in earnest at the earliest with the traditional and emerging markets. Quarantine load factor to be done away for those who have taken the two doses of the vaccination. This should be also accepted by the country from where the tourists are coming so that they do not face the harassment when they go back to their country of origin.
Segmentation, targeting and positioning of destinations comes next so that they find their justified promotion in the brochure movement by the foreign tour operators. Eco, wellness and responsible travel will hold the ground post covid with sustainable tourism practices gaining the desired momentum.
Slow tourism will be in vogue as tourist would seek to stay longer in a destination, BLeisure and Staycations need to capitalised upon. Religious tourism is another segment to bank on and here comes the Buddhist circuit of India which can be turned into a round the year tourism profile.
Worldwide, tourism is private sector driven business. All the promotional activities are carried out by the private sector, fully funded by the Government, and the same approach needs to be applied in India too.
This means that the private sector needs to be given the lead to plan and execute every possible aggressive, timely marketing and promotional activities encompassing segmentation, targeting and positioning India tourism at relevant fora, right from attending international tourism fairs, organizing road shows across the world to hosting tourism exhibition in the country, bringing in foreign tour operators and travel writers and journalist, and more.
IATO should be made responsible for organizing overseas roadshows fully financed by the Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India. The international publicity campaign to start in earnest. Engagement with multilateral forums: It is recommended to extend cooperation for signing MOUs between large tourism associations abroad with inbound tour operators’ associations in India for developing better exchange of tourism related activities round the year.
There is a lot of potential pent-up demand across the world because of the pandemic induced restrictions on international travel. And with the pandemic, and the resultant restrictions on cross-border travel, on the wane, we need to move quickly to take advantage of this latent demand. For this to happen, we need to extend marketing support to the Foreign Tour Operators (FTO) who are themselves in no better conditions than we are. The destinations that reach out to these FTOs first, with financial support for their marketing activities, will benefit the most and others will be left out.
As per a recent policy announcement, 20 missions abroad to have nodal tourism officers – this aspect needs to reach out in a planned manner for the promotion of Inbound. The nodal officers need to be well informed about the USP of our destinations and would lead the Road shows conducted abroad.
Streamline e-Visa for all International Passengers, 5 lakh free visa needs to be extended till 31st March 2024 as Covid did not witness any scheduled Inbound. This extension to be propagated all around, starting with the main source markets, spark off with Twitter blocks Instagram, Facebook YouTube etc.
Normalisation of e-tourist visas from all source markets also, making it for the full original duration and multiple entry to cover regional destinations of neighbouring countries too. Visa to be linked with Insurance. Introduce application forms for e-Visa in multiple foreign languages online. This will help increase in foreign tourists’ arrivals. The visas which are to be granted to tourists, the basic guideline should be that they have to book a tour for certain minimum number of days and Visa to be given to those who book through authorised travel agents in their respective countries who in turn deal with Indian Tour Operators who are recognised by Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. This will usher in authenticity and quality tourists. Visa SOPs to be line before opening up.
The Ministry of Tourism should come up with Incredible India 3.0. Inbound tourist mapping is very important as there is no even distribution of tourist traffic across India. Incredible India 3.0 should come up with regional destination branding. Any marketing initiative should be focused on regions and that should be specifically highlighting the niche tourism product of that specific part of the country. Even FTO mapping is important. FTOs need to be coded and to be asked for customer identification and their productivity. He should be encouraged and incentivized to sell entire India so that the traffic can be evenly distributed.
To conclude, let me outline that the Parliamentary Committee on Tourism suggested that we need to be competitive with respect to taxes and here the way forward is the case for rationalisation of the tax structure, prevent the cascading effect of GST on tourism industry, removal of GST on services provided outside India to foreign tourists, withdrawal of tax collection at source (TCS) for the foreign tourists and refund of IGST paid by the tourist leaving India on supply of goods taken out of India. Tax refund for Tourists (TRT) Scheme to be implemented.
The above structured thoughts will steer India to the path of exponential growth in inbound tourism.
By Rajiv Mehra, President, Indian Association of Tour Operators
