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With the government planning to extend the visa-on-arrival facility to tourists from 180 countries, travel companies can’t help but smile at business prospects. The decision to ease visa processes through electronic travel authorisation follows years of lobbying by tourism companies. While implementation of the move will take about seven months, companies are expecting the number of inbound tourist to double in the next couple of years.
“One of the reasons why we were lagging behind countries such as Thailand and Singapore in tourist numbers was our visa regime. We are going to go all out to promote this to international travellers,” said Prashant Narayan, senior vice-president and head ( inbound leisure travel) Thomas Cook India.
Travel companies plan to announce the development with much fanfare at the Internationale Tourismus Börse in Berlin next month.
Amid the rejoicing, some feel India might not actually walk its talk of being generous in granting visas. “This discussion has been underway for very long, but after the elections, one may take a relook at the infrastructure and security hurdles that the move may pose. Also, reciprocity issues with countries will come into play,” said a bureaucrat. A source said “it might be a long haul” before the decision is implemented in entirety.
To turn its plan into reality, the government plans to get a few things right between now and September. Apart from the requirement of about 2,000 trained persons, the home ministry has also stressed the need to set up a secure payment gateway for facilitating visa fee transactions online. Also, the Centre has to ramp up airport infrastructure across key cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata.
“We have to go about implementing this in a phased manner. We could start with European nations, from where we get a lot of demand. This will give a serious fillip to tourism. In three years, we should get 11 million tourists if we apply this with gusto,” said Vikram Madhok, managing director, Abercrombie and Kent India.
The hotel sector, on its part, expects the move to improve occupancy levels. “We have a lot of supply of hotel rooms coming into the market in the next couple of years. This will help fill up the demand-supply gap,” said Akshay Kulkarni, regional director of Cushman & Wakefield’s hospitality segment. Experts say easing the relaxed visa regime will boost investment in developing infrastructure. “One thing follows another. People will invest in various sectors once the tourist inflow gains momentum,” Narayan said.
Travel firms have been reeling under the slowdown, which led to slow growth in foreign tourist arrivals. As a result, most firms have invested in promoting the domestic tourism market, which continues to thrive. “This opens up many markets for firms. For long, tourists have complained about the expensive and time-consuming visa processes. This will give us at least 50 per cent growth in tourist numbers,” said Subhash Goyal, president, Indian Association of Tour Operators.
