The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH) has urged the government to open up India’s international borders to tourists and permit the operation of commercial flights in full strength.
In a letter to the Ministry of Tourism today, it said the ministry must take up the issue with the Ministry of Health for immediate opening up of international borders and resumption of full commercial flights with zero quarantine rules for fully vaccinated travellers across all Indian ports.
It has also requested for extension of the free e-visas from the currently announced five million tourists. It has sought allotment of free visas between 2022-2024 to all tourists till inbound travel recovers.
"All FAITH associations have been jointly taking this up and hope for a quick resolution to support the stressed inbound and outbound travel industry of India," said Nakul Anand, chairman of the federation.
The federation represents at least 10 associations comprising the entire tourism, travel and hospitality industries of India.
Prior to the pandemic, in 2019 -20, the travel industry had received almost 10.9 million foreign tourists and about $30 billion or ₹2.12 lakh crore in revenue and was engaged in travel planning for almost 26.9 million outbound travellers from India. But the country's inbound travel and outbound travel industry has been almost entirely shut for the past 23 months.
Both the lines of businesses have been completely closed, rendering huge distress, unemployment and financial burden on employees and enterprises of the Indian travel industry in the absence of that work, the federation said.
It added that as Omicron subsides, a lot of countries have now opened up their borders or have announced that they would be open to fully vaccinated travellers.
It has also asked for an immediate rollout of global marketing campaigns across all digital, print, electronic and OOH media in all global markets of India.
