Key Highlights
- With travel being the last thing on people’s minds, numbers will surely dwindle for international travel; but there might be a silver lining for the domestic leisure-travel segment
- The Government has extended a helping hand via moratoriums and tax policy changes, but industry sentiment says that more is required in terms of financial relief
- Owed to the uncertainty of the pandemic, businesses can undertake alternate functions during the lockdown which were otherwise put on the backburner
The travel and tourism industry in India is a major force, employing a large human capital and being a major source of revenue for various states. So, it was only natural that the novel coronavirus pandemic, and the consequent national lockdown, would heavily impact the industry, ranging from stakeholders at the top to the ones at the bottom.
While this does ring certain alarm bells and paints a grim picture for the industry going forward in the next few months (from an operational, and possibly financial, point of view), there might be a change in the mindsets of frequent travelers with outbound travel from India to other countries surely looking to take a hit in numbers.
Albeit this is a situation which has the propensity to breed catastrophe, there might just be a silver lining which spells opportunity. New players in the market can develop offering and revised business models to ensure that the industry finds its feet sooner than expected and continues to sustain, post the pandemic. There are also various functions which can be undertaken by businesses to better their outreach and sustain the challenging times with relatively less impact.
To gain an overview of the current situation of the travel and tourism industry in India, its stakeholder sentiment, as well as how the industry can look to stabilize going forward after the pandemic situation, we spoke to Ayush Mittal, who currently leads Coinmen’s Corporate Tax team as a Manager. He shares his inputs on the pandemic’s impact and his thoughts on how Government intervention can further help reduce the load on the sector, added to the current policies which are already in place.
check out the entire podcast via YouTube, here’s the link:
And while it is understandable that businesses will look at different strategies to recover once the market is back to normal, it is also important to ensure that they survive through these difficult times via swift government interventions.
We await your thoughts on the matter. Do listen to the podcast and share your inputs with us in the comments!
