India Ices Tourism Out of Covid Aid — At What Cost?
Photo Credit: India's battered tourism and hospitality industry has yet to receive any government Covid relief. Getty Images / Tuul & Bruno Morandi
Skift Take
Despite being excluded from any government Covid relief to date, tourism stakeholders remain resilient and hopeful, with a future closer to vaccines plus promising backyard tourism trends.
While governments around the world have come to recognize the need for additional Covid relief for their tourism industries, India has done the opposite: It slashed the country’s tourism budget for 2021-2022 by 19 percent. Or so it appears at first glance.
Under the mantra “Atmanirbhar Bharat” or “a self sufficient India,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman released a 2021-2022 financial plan that essentially ignores India’s tourism and hospitality industry as a main pillar of recovery. Even her budget release speech is devoid of the word "tourism."
Instead, the year’s funding allocations focus primarily on healthcare and infrastructure, to the tune of a 137 percent increase for the healthcare and wellbeing sector to $10.1 billion, particularly focusing on vaccines and health facility support, plus $31.3 billion for infrastructure and transportation.
No state relief in sight, despite numerous appeals, is a staggering outcome for India’s tourism industry, which
