‘We are positive on tourism growth’

Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, IHCL and President, Hotel Association of India (HAI) says they expect a huge positive, a development for the travel and tourism industry. He believes that the 6Ps of Planning, Place, People, Policy, Process and Promotion will make India a tourism power in its own right.

Nisha Verma

Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, IHCL and President, Hotel Association of India (HAI) said that as a company, they have created destinations like Goa, Kerala or more recently Havelock in Andamans.

In his recommendations after the post-budget webinar by Union Ministry of Tourism, Chhatwal also commended the government on creating such destinations in the recent past. “A very good example recently of creating a destination would be that of Ekta Nagar in Kewadiya or Statue of Unity. I think doing 50 new destinations would be like building 50 new Ekta Nagars in the country,” he said.

He claimed that with all the potential India has, I think the six Ps of Planning, Place, People, Policy, Process and Promotion is very critical. “Under Planning, we must ensure seamless connectivity and transport options for all our destinations. We have also recently won the bid for building Lakshadweep and planning of connectivity and transport to Lakshadweep is as important or even more important than just building the islands of Swahili and Kadmath. We must focus on enhancement of aviation capacity with 80 new airports expected in five years. We expect a huge positive, a development for the travel and tourism industry. Obviously, the other ecosystem also needs to grow with M!CE, F&B, and other 360 degree attractions,” he said.

Secondly, Place is very important in choosing these destinations, he said. “We must however, in these places have an inclusive responsible and sustainable development. While everything is being rooted locally, I think responsible destination management would be the main area under place,” he added.  Thirdly, it is the People. “We should ensure skilling and development of human capital and bring in schemes for reward and recognition, as well as tie-up with global partners to take skilling to the next level. Today, we have announced our 17th skilling centre we have built. The last one being in Lucknow and recent one in Jamshedpur. On skilling, we have committed to skill a hundred thousand people by 2030, of which 25,000 must be women,” he claimed.

“On Policy, we must make requisite policy intervention including tourism. With your support, we have tried very hard for the infrastructure status and industry status in many states. We have succeeded with the industry status, but we still have a long way to go in getting full infrastructure status at the central level,” he shared. Fifth being Process, Chhatwal commented that there is still a need to streamline processes to enhance ease of doing business, ease of travel, visa, immigration and customs and focus on the national digital tourism mission as well as tourism MSMEs. Finally for Promotion, he said, “We must promote key tourism teams, which we had always outlined in the past and also promoting India as a destination internationally. There has been a lot of discussion on that issue in how that should be done,” he said.