The worst is behind in the tourism sector, however, different trends are being seen with domestic travel seeing a lot of activity in December, said Puneet Chhatwal, Chairman of Tourism Committee at the Confederation of Indian Industry on Thursday. Chhatwal, who is also the President of the Hotel Association of India, added that half of the domestic travel activity came back in the third quarter. However, there is no activity in international tourism.

“There are two different trends that we are seeing. When it comes to international tourism, of course, the borders are shut, there is zero activity on that front and not much is expected in the next few months to come. However, when it comes to domestic tourism as well as the turnaround post the festive season, most of the resorts saw a lot of activity and a lot of people ventured out and we saw full hotels and a very good turnaround in the month of December for the entire industry,” Chhatwal told CNBC-TV18.

The third quarter was much better and January too may come good, he said.

“It would be fair to assume that almost 50 percent of the activity came back for the quarter. It got accelerated in the month of December. December was good mainly because of leisure. January is also expected to be good.”

Chhatwal believes if the lockdown is lifted in bigger states, it will be a big boost for tourism. “Hopefully if the lockdown stops in big places like Maharashtra—it is a very big state for business, the city of Mumbai—then I am optimistic that we will see rapid acceleration towards getting to pre-COVID level over the next six-nine months.”

According to him, the worst is behind us and this sector is needed for the sustainable healthy growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) as well as for the creation of jobs.

“Majority has been able to survive. We are in revival mode. Tourism globally produces more than 10 percent of jobs and contributes more than 10 percent to the GDP. The sector’s revival is the key to the sustainable growth of the business in the country,” Chhatwal said.

Batting for the industry status, Chhatwal said, “The government should consider giving tourism industry the infrastructure status and inclusion of the tourism industry in the concurrent list of the constitution and at the state level to get the industry status.”

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(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)

First Published:Jan 7, 2021 1:19 PM IST