Time to restart, refocus, reimagine

The way forward with or without COVID-19 will require a lot of steps to be followed, both by the public and private sector. Apart from focusing on newer avenues, the industry and government are also looking for corrective measures that may help the industry in the longer term in times of crisis and even otherwise.

Meenakshi Sharma, Director General, Ministry of Tourism

A lot of people in the tourism sector suffer from very low margins. This raises the question of whether we are selling ourselves too cheap or the service is not as promised. This makes it difficult to survive because there is not much scope left amidst too much competition. We are relaxing rules for approval of tour operators, so that the benefit can go to start-ups and those who haven’t been involved with us.

Valsa Nair Singh, Principal Secretary – Tourism, Culture Excise & Civil Aviation Government of Maharashtra

The government will come out with a policy to encourage more vacation rentals to enter the market. This comes from the fact that after this crisis, we need to open new destinations that may otherwise be back or beyond. We will now look at identifying such offbeat destinations. Government of Maharashtra has also drafted a new adventure tourism policy, in the public domain now.

Dipak Haksar, Retired CEO, ITC Hotels

It is important to restore consumer confidence. States have started opening and have come up with protocols both for stakeholders as well as tourists. I believe this is really a partnership, where the government will shape the rules and stakeholders will follow them, thereby helping restore consumer confidence. Communities and consumers must also be responsible. We need to change the narrative.

BM Gupta, Whole Time Director, Tourism Finance Corporation of India

To revive tourism, we need to proactively tell people that travelling in India is safe, indicating the SOPs and asking the government to be an enabler for it. We should also take cue from how the Indian way of living and Ayurveda have played a crucial role in the country achieving the highest recovery rate. The industry should take up with MOT and RBI hotel projects being part of infrastructure financing.

Kapil Kaul, CEO, CAPA India

Since May, the number of air travellers has increased from 45,000 to 150,000 in daily average. This means that people are travelling owing to varied reasons, and airlines, airports and hotels can share this data so that targeted efforts can be made to revive leisure air travel. This data should be shared across the value chain so everyone can learn and make targeted efforts in a more proactive digital marketing.

Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director & CEO, IHCL

We need to refocus. Brands that offer the assurance of safety will be preferred over others. India needs envisioning the future that caters to the domestic needs of populations by creating and advertising domestic tourist destinations as safe and hygienic in the short term; creating a structure that is friendly for international inbound in the medium term and focusing on both for the long term.

Inputs by Nisha Verma