Thaindian News

New Delhi, July 6 (IANS) Tourism has not found much favour with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who gave only a token Rs.20 crore increase in allocation for the ministry in the union budget presented Monday, with almost a third of the Rs.1,070 crore for promotion of the “Incredible India” campaign overseas.
In a spur to adventure tourism in the country, Mukherjee announced custom duty exemption for water and snow equipment used in adventure tourism.

“We welcome the move to exempt custom duty for all water and snow equipment that are used in adventure tourism. It will give a boost to adventure tourism. It was a major demand of the ministry that has been fulfilled,” Tourism Minister Kumari Selja said here while welcoming the budget.

Selja had met the finance minister last month for budgetary sops, which included custom duty waiver for inflatable raft, snow skis, water skis, surf boat, sail board and other water sports equipment.

Promoting India abroad is a focus area for the tourism ministry, which plans to organise a series of roadshows to attract foreign tourists.

Also, exemption from service tax has been given to tourist vehicles authorised to ply inter-state. This would bring down the cost of tour operators and result in cheaper tariff for hiring tourist vehicles, including coaches.

Of the total allocation of Rs.1,070 crore, Rs.304 crore has been allocated for overseas campaigns, as compared to Rs.285 crore last fiscal.

About 5.36 million foreign tourists visited India in 2008, recording a growth of 5.6 percent over the previous year. But January saw a 17.6 percent dip with only 487,262 arrivals.

In April, some improvement was witnessed, with 370,756 tourists visiting India - a drop of 3.5 percent over the same month the previous year.