India’s Travel Sector Has Same Old Hopes From a New Budget

With India’s Union Budget announcement less than a week away, leaders from the travel sector have expressed hopes for measures to boost the industry. The expectations are the same as they have been for years now – infrastructure status for hotels, simpler Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, policy support for destination development, better planning for existing infrastructure, and support for digital platforms, to name a few.

Among the hospitality industry, the call for infrastructure status has been a long-standing demand. In last year’s budget, India had focused on the development of 50 destinations. As part of that, it said that hotels in these destinations would have access to loans on easier terms and eligibility to borrow from the government’s India Infrastructure Financing Company (IIFCL).

This was a welcome move and one that the industry agrees with. But that alone is not enough. 

“With supply growth continuing to lag demand, p