Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) has asked the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India to consider a visa fee waiver for all kinds of visas to attract more inbound tourists into India.
Pronab Sarkar, President, IATO said, “We had requested the Ministry of Tourism to support the industry by waiving off the Visa Fee for the tourists visa/e-visa to India for all foreign nationals.“
“Countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, in our neighbourhood are proactive and they have already started marketing their tourism products with extremely lucrative packages. For Indian Tourism industry to counteract and compete with our neighbouring and other South-East Asian Countries, we need to offer extremely competitive tourism packages for which we need full support from the government“, he added.
However, The association welcomed the decision of the Ministry of Culture to open all centrally monitored monuments in the country but called for the entry price for foreign tourists to these monuments to be raised to the level of other SAARC countries.
Moreover, IATO asked the government to lower entry fees for all of the country’s monuments controlled by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and they could be charged the same entrance fee which is being charged from the nationals of SAARC countries till March 31, 2022.
“Any reduction in government levies will help inbound tour operators to reduce the overall package cost and also will give a message globally that India is ready for welcoming the foreign tourists. Once we are able to compete with our neighbouring countries, we shall revive and bring a good number of tourists within a very short period. This will also help save many young professionals’ jobs in our Industry,” said Pronab Sarkar.
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