Union Budget 2022: Expectations from the hospitality industry

“The government supported us, but more need to be done in terms of offering interest-free loans, subsidies, reduction in tax structure, which will help in the recovery and covering up the previous losses,” says Aryavir Kumar, Managing Director, The Clarks Hotels & Resorts

Kumar added,”The outlook is good and there is optimism, since a few months the business has picked up. In order to support the sector further, the government should permit the corporate bookings and MICE to come under IGST. This will help the companies to avail GST input credit, which will encourage them to spend their annual budgets in India rather than opting for South-East Asia destinations.”

Anant Kumar, Co-Founder Brij Hotels said that the government needs to relook into taxes, especially where the hospitality sector is concerned.

“The current GST structure is not uniform, this often leads to a lot of confusion in the hospitality and food industry. It becomes more chaotic where the GST charges are concerned for the in-house restaurants and bakeries. Also, alcohol should be bought under the GST net, currently, it is under excise. The above measures reduce complexity enabling MSME’s to focus on core area’s of business hence scale faster,” says Anant Kumar.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held a pre-budget meeting with state finance ministers on December 30. This was a part of a series of pre-budget consultations being held in the run-up to the Union Budget 2022-23.