Chennai: The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI), the apex body for Hotels & Restaurants in the country, has sought infrastructure and industry status for the hospitality industry for projects of Rs 25 crores and above.
“The tourism sector suffers from a gap in terms of world-class infrastructure development in the country's tourism destinations. This gap can be bridged by encouraging investments in hotel sector by giving infrastructure status for lower investments. Also no other nation has GST rate as high as 28% on hotels and tourism. Charging different tax rates on the nature of accommodation and destination may escalate a perception that India is not a tourist friendly nation,” says Garish Oberoi, president of FHRAI.
As to the restrictions for hotels to be constructed near the beaches and coasts, the FHRAI has demanded environment clearance for such projects as these would contribute more to the tourism of the place, apart from providing fine dining experience. Also, the federation asked the government to treat all foreign exchange earnings as exports or deemed exports, make transaction value as the basis of rate categorisation and not declared tariff, restoration of input credits for restaurant industry.
