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Tourism has come to a standstill in India from Wednesday after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday night, a 21 day stay at home orders to India’s 1.3 billion people to break Covid-19 spread. This came after a successful trial public self-curfew on Sunday. All modes of transport- airlines, cruises, railways, buses, taxi and autorickshaw services have been suspended since Wednesday morning.

India has had a few hundreds of affected Covid-19 cases with few fatalities so far. Many of the hotels, including some five star hotels, have offered their facilities to lodge quarantined guests at subsidised prices. Achin Khanna,  Managing Partner, Hotelivate, said: “We have been discussing the ongoing impact of COVID-19 with key hotel industry stakeholders. We expect next two to three months remain grim after a brisk January. Assuming that virus may begin to wane by June or July, overall loss of revenue for the 140,000 branded hotel rooms will be anywhere between US $1.3 bn to $1.5 bn with an additional loss of $4.2 bn to $4.7 bn for alternate accommodation industry.” Aviation has taken a big hit and may need longer to recover, with job losses expected from hotels, aviation and cruise industry, where 8% to 10% of crew on worldwide cruises is Indian.Tourism industry contributes to about 10 percent of India’s GDP at approximately US$275 bn

India’s Finance Minister Niramala Sitararaman has hinted  at some sort of compensation to the financially burdened industry, with current priority aimed at containing the spread of the epidemic that’s been affecting thousands of people across the world.

Written By Anand & Madhura Katti