The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Centre for rationalising luxury tax for hotels

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Sunday, Jan 11, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Centre for rationalising luxury tax for hotels

Special Correspondent

Aim is to increase international tourist arrivals to 10 million per annum

— Photo:R. Shivaji Rao

focus on tourism: Union Minister of Tourism and Culture Ambika Soni inaugurating the FHRAI annual awards function in Chennai on Saturday.V. Irai Anbu, Secretary, Tourism and Culture Department, and M.P. Purushothaman, president FHRAI, are in the picture.

CHENNAI: The Centre is in touch with the State government to rationalise luxury tax for hotels to ensure a uniform tax structure in the country, said Union Minister for Tourism and Culture Ambika Soni here on Saturday.

The Centre’s aim is to increase the international tourists from the present 5.08 million to 10 million per annum. This will be possible if the tourism and hospitality industry offer attractive packages and launch innovative campaign to lure tourists. If countries such as Bangkok and the Maldives are able to attract 15 million and 7 million tourists, why not India, she asked.

Nearly 50,000 tourists skipped India as they could not afford to pay “exorbitant” room rent. The hotel industry should ponder this and provide affordable rooms for budget tourists. As there was good potential for tourists from South East Asian and West Asian countries apart from traditional countries, she wanted the industry to concentrate on these sections.

Terming the ‘Incredible India’ campaign successful, she asked the industry to showcase the country’s age-old heritage and culture to international tourists. Noting there was a fall in tourism growth rate from 14.05 per cent to 8 per cent, the Minister said one reason was the global meltdown along with the terrorists attack on Mumbai. But, it was possible to overcome the drawbacks by a sustained campaign.

Awards distributed

The Minister distributed annual awards of the Federation of Hotel and Restaurants Associations of India.

V.Irai Anbu, Secretary, Tourism and Culture, Tamil Nadu, thanked the Centre for providing sufficient funds for various tourism projects in the State, which helped it to improve lesser known tourist spots.

President of the federation M.P.Purushothaman urged the Centre to grant ‘infrastructure status’ to the hotel industry to help hotels get benefits now being extended to other infrastructure sectors such as roads, telecommunications and posts. This would bring more investments to the sector, which, in turn, would increase the room capacity thus generating more jobs.

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