NEW DELHI: Hospitality and travel sector players on Tuesday demanded infrastructure status for the hotel industry besides measures such as tax exemption on LTA annually to boost domestic tourism ahead of the Union Budget.
They also recommended removal of the current TDS levied on automated bookings for internal or closed user groups such as business travel platforms and reducing the total number of licenses required to establish a hotel.
“A full-blown infrastructure status for the hotel sector and further rationalisation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and a Central single window clearance for hotel projects are some of the major expectations from the Budget 2024,” Roseate Hotels & Resorts CEO Kush Kapoor said in a statement.
The industry has been clamouring for infrastructure status for decades. The status will enable hotel projects to have easy access to cheaper debt that is at par with projects in other industries. A reduced capital cost will have a bearing on both timely completion of projects and their overall financial health, he added.
SOTC Travel Managing Director Vishal Suri said albeit interim, the Union Budget offers a significant opportunity as a growth accelerator for the travel and tourism sector, which is “a valuable contributor to the country’s GDP and a powerful employment engine”.
Calling for a multi-pronged approach, he asked the government to “remove the deterrent to technology in the form of the current TDS that is levied on automated bookings (self-booking tools) for internal/closed user groups such as our business travel platforms”.
With inputs from PTI.
