25th May 2020

To All Members  

Dear Friends,

Sub: Update from the President

On behalf of the Executive Committee I wish you all, your staff and family good health. At this stage I cannot wish you good business as the situation does not seems to be very favouring for the tourism industry and we are not sure as to when tourism is going to revive.

There is overall dismay and anguish with Government for totally ignoring tourism and other industry. While we are continuing with our efforts with the hope that government shall consider tourism during second wave of some support, I am writing this to update you all about the efforts we have made to get attention on our problems and relief for our members since February 2020, when all of a sudden Covid -19 entered into India with only 3 cases reported in Kerala.

Following this, all international flights from China were cancelled and Visas were suspended. This was followed by cancellation of international flights from Italy, Iran, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and few other countries. On 13th of March 2020, all visas/e-Visas were suspended.  

Many of our foreign tourists who were already in India and staying in hotels, were quarantined in the hotels, and were not allowed to do any sight-seeing or any movement. Hotels in Agra, some cities in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, North East, and some other places refused entry of foreign tourists in spite of prior bookings. All tourists were advised to leave India as soon as possible. But there were no seats for many countries as the flights were already cancelled and for other nationals where flights were operating, they had to change their travel plan to return to their country by paying heavy charges.

On 25th of March all international flights were cancelled with the first lockdown and all foreign tourists who could not return were stranded at different places.

During this critical situation, we got number of emails, telephone calls from our members to help their foreign tourists including cruise ships in Mumbai.

We got in touch with Mrs. Meenakshi Sharma, Director General Tourism, Mrs. Rupinder Brar Additional Director General Tourism and all cases were resolved one to one with the help of our Ministry.

This was just a start of going to be long battle for the tourism industry for survival and revival because this was a peak season for the tourism industry and all bookings for the month of February, March and April were cancelled. Members landed into big trouble as they had made advance payments to the hotels, have booked their domestic air tickets, booked wildlife safaris and paid for the luxury trains. We got many emails and telephone calls from the members to help and get their refunds of advances paid to hotels, airlines, state governments etc.

In the meantime members were also worried about the Covid-19 started spreading very fast when the 2nd lockdown was announced on 14th April 2020.

IATO has been working tirelessly during over 4 months starting from first week of February till this date.

  • IATO approached, FHRAI, HAI directly and through FAITH to get refund from the hotel.
  • Approached domestic airlines Air India, IndiGo, Air Vistara, for the refund and following this we approached Ministry of Civil Aviation/DGCA, Ministry of Tourism, Niti Aayog, etc.
  • Approached RTDC, Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Railway Minister, Railway Minister and Niti Aayog for refund of advance paid for the luxury trains
  • Approached State Governments, Tourism Ministry, Niti Aayog for refund of advance paid for the wildlife safaris

We shall write you separately about the information required with the latest updates on pending refunds in a specified format after all offices are opened.

We continued our aggressive follow up on all our refunds, personally and in writing with copies of all those letters to the Ministry of Tourism Government of India.

This resulted in some of the hotels refunding payments to the tour operators. Some airlines and hotels Airlines agreed to give credit note but we did not accept the same and asked for refunds. Now some of the Wildlife parks have announced refund from UP and Maharashtra.

Above were our efforts to get refunds for our members.

2.       IATO Efforts for Survival and Revival of the members:- Then came the question of Survival and Revival of the tour operators and we made all our efforts to get some relief for our members. IATO worked day and night on all front by writing to the various authorities in the Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce, Niti Aayog, and PMO. The main demands made by IATO were the following:- 

Immediate Relief required for Survival - Short Term Action Plan

  • Bailout Package for Pay Roll support to pay salaries. 
  • To Enhance value of SEIS to 10%  for financial year 2019-20 on gross foreign exchange earnings.
  • Extension of SEPC Membership till 31st March 2021.
  • Deferment of Statutory Dues for twelve months. 
  • Moratorium of Bank Loan EMIs for 12 months without any accrued and accumulated interest.
  • Creation of Tourism Covid-19 Relief Fund by RBI or Ministry of Finance or Ministry of Tourism to support salaries and establishment costs in the form of non-collateral and interest free loan to Tourism corporates for repayment of the principle within 5-10 year. 
  • Insurance Corpus of ESI to be used to provide wages to all tourism sector employees covered under ESI.
  • Full Refund from Airline, State Governments for Safari Bookings and Luxury Trains, towards cancellations made by the foreign tourists without any cancellation charges.

Relief required for Post Covid-19 for Revival - Action Plan

  • Extending SEIS for the tourism sector for 2020-2025 with enhanced value of 15% during off season (April-Sept) and 10% during season (Oct-Mar).   
  • Tourism Industry be given status of deemed exporters based on their foreign exchange earnings and all benefits that are given to exporters of goods and IT industry should be given to tourism industry including exemption of GST on foreign exchange billing.  
  • Tax Refund for Tourists (TRT) Scheme under section 15 of the IGST Act 2017 to be implemented.
  • Free e-visa for Inbound tourists in competition of our neighbouring countries.
  • Design and undertake a detailed source market wise tourism marketing plan through Electronic, Social & Print Media.
  • To organise Incredible India Road shows in important overseas source markets by the Ministry of Tourism. 

The above suggestions were sent directly by IATO to the Hon'ble Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Tourism Minister, Commerce Minister, CEO Niti Aayog. Also all these demands were raised through FAITH and Chambers of Commerce like CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, WTTCII etc. to raise one voice for the industry and to get some weightage and draw attention of the government on our legitimate demands to survive.  Please note all these letters were sent repeatedly number of times.

Above issues were raised by the Presidents during various meetings/webinars organised by

a)   Meeting held at the office of Hon'ble Tourism Minister Shri Prahlad Singh Patel at his office along with FAITH. 

b)   Webinar meeting called by Ministry of Tourism for all associations chaired by Secretary Tourism.

c)    FICCI  Webinar - Chaired by Minister of Commerce Mr. Piyush Goyal, and Mr. Prahlad Singh Patel, Minister of Tourism, Government of India

d)   MoT  Webinar- Joint Working Group Meeting chaired by Mr. Rakesh Kumar Verma, Joint Secretary Tourism

e)    Niti Aayog Webinar  meeting with FAITH members only – Chaired by Mr. Amitabh Kant

f)      SEPC Webinar – Chaired by Mr. Maneck Davar, Chairman, SEPC

g)    PHDCCI Webinar to discuss Post Covid revival in Domestic Tourism – Mrs. Meenakshi Sharma, Director General Tourism

h)   PHDCCI - Webinar meeting with renowned labor lawyers from Supreme Courts of India.

Majority of the letters are available on IATO website for members information.

IATO also approached State Governments like Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, West Bengal directly or through our State Chapter Chairmen  for some relief at the state level in the form of

  • Exemption of Road Tax, SGST
  • Deferment of Statutory Dues like PF 
  • Creation of Tourism Covid -19 Relief Fund to support salaries and establishment costs in the form of non-collateral interest free loan for 5-10 years.
  • A complete SGST Tax Holiday for the Tourism, Travel & Hospitality Industry for a period of twelve months.
  • To boost Domestic Tourism, incentivise residents of India through LTA for holidaying within India.
  • Refund of Road Tax paid for Tourist Transpor

Mr Najeeb, Sr. Vice President also has made tremendous efforts in Kerala and end result from Kerala is still awaited. Our other Chapter Chairmen also have been doing a lot of positive work. But results are similar without much support to Tourism. Mr. Najeeb recently attended a CII Webinar and interacted with Niti Aayog  and we have some hope from the Government. Besides IATO is also writing to RBI Governor.

3.       Media Initiative and PR:- In this hour of crisis, our PR Agency M/s. Sambandh PR did an excellent job and almost all National Daily Newspapers raised the issues tourism industry was facing and fighting for existence. IATO’s grievance were covered in more than 60 print media besides coverage on ABP News, North East TV and one Punjabi News Channel.

4.       IATO Webinars for the member:- In light of Government of India notifications regarding wages and dealing with the employees IATO organised following webinars Via Zoom

  • 1st IATO webinar on 24th April 2020 on “Legal  strategies for Employer & Employee relationship in light of Notification issued by Home Ministry Govt. of India/State Governments - its effects”. Mr. Amir Singh Pasrich, Advocate, Supreme Court and Chairman of Law & Justice Committee, PHDCCI was the speaker and session was moderated by Mrs, Anjana Gosain - IATO Legal Advisor and Advocate Delhi High Court
  • 2nd IATO Webinar on 30th April 2020 on  “Employer & Employee relationship in light of Covid -19 and Lockdown and how to move forward”. During this zoom meeting members interacted and members requested to arrange draft letters from the HR company on various matters and conducted a Webinar meeting with some senior HR consultants.
  • 3rd IATO Webinar on  12th May 2020  on "Employer & Employee Relationship in light of Covid -19 and Lockdown and how to move forward” . During this meeting Mr. Sanjay Lakhotia, CEO, Think Noble House was the speaker who talked about Employer and Employee relationships and explained the HR policy issues and the 6 drafts he had given and circulated to the members.
  • Webinar on SEIS on 14th May 2020- On IATO’s request,  a webinar on SEIS Scheme (How to correctly File SEIS Claims) was organised by Ministry of Tourism Government of India, which was moderated by Mrs. Rupinder Brar, Additional Director General Tourism. Mrs. Suman Sharma, Additional Director General, Directorate of Foreign Trade was the Guest Speaker and explained members about the correct Filing of SEIS claims and avoid unnecessary delay in settlements

Thus IATO left no stone unturned to get some relief for the members. We were very hopeful that keeping in view the effect of  Covid-19 on the tourism industry there would something be announced by the Finance Minister during the relief package. But unfortunately, none of the industry got any direct financial benefit including tourism and all our efforts went into drain.

But our efforts are still continued and we still have some hopes that our voice will be heard at the corridor of powers. After the relief packages were announced, we have sent our revised proposal to Minister of Tourism, Minister of Finance and Niti Aayog.  We shall keep knocking the doors of the Government officials at the helm of affairs till the time our voice is heard.

Lastly, I would like to say that IATO as your association has many inputs and working on it. 

We also welcome you to give your inputs enabling take it further. Every member is important and  it matters a lot and your input counts. Association is by the members and for the members and the collective inputs are very important. 


We feel, Inbound Tourism is not going to start in 2020 in absence of vaccination being  invented. Please share your ideas, How you look at your survival in individual capacity if there is no support from the Government and share your ideas, for others to learn from it. Collectively we all can do more therefore, we are looking forward to your suggestions soon.

Once your inputs are received, we shall call an All Members Zoom meeting formembers’ inputs and discuss our way forward. We shall communicate the date and time of members Webinar once we receive your inputs by Wednesday 27th May 2020 evening.

With this I would like to thank each and every one of you for your support and hope tourism will revive soon and we will bounce back into business.

Stay Home, Stay Safe and take care of yourself, your Family and Staff,

Thanks and regards,

Pronab Sarkar

President