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Kerala’s travel and tourism industry has given the thumbs up on extension of visa on Arrivals to 150 countries, describing the step as a “major decision” benefiting Kerala Tourism in a big way.
EM Najeeb, President, Confederation of Tourism Industry said this will lead to increase in international tourist arrivals thereby benefitting the aviation sector by way of more flights and investments.
Last year, Kerala registered 8.5 lakh foreign tourist arrivals and this number would definitely go up once this facility is extended to more countries from next fiscal. However, the industry is seriously concerned over the hike in service tax to 14 per cent as it would increase costs and discourage tourism, he added. Abraham George, President, Kerala Travel Mart, said that the State has already witnessed a 7-8 per cent growth in international tourist arrivals especially with the implementation of Visa on Arrivals from 42 countries. At the same time, he stressed the need to promote domestic tourism also by way of providing more incentives and exempting service tax, which is a long pending demand of the industry. It is reported that 50 million Indians would travel abroad by 2020. A small percentage of this revenue can be diverted to India if the authorities provided some incentives for the promotion of domestic tourism, he added.
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