The Hindu : New Delhi News : Tour operators observe black day

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 16, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Tour operators observe black day

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 15. The Indian Association of Tour Operators has decided to go to court against the Delhi Government's notification of September 6 levying luxury tax on printed hotel room rates. The tour operators across the country also observed a `Black Day' today to protest against the Government's move.

The decision to challenge the Delhi Government's notification was taken at a meeting of the Indian Association of Tour Operators held here. The meeting described the Government's notification as "unjustified and unwarranted" and said that this would not only cause hardship to them but also lead to loss of revenue to the State Government as the tourists would start skipping Delhi and head for neighbouring places like Gurgaon, Jaipur and Agra where luxury tax was far less. Representatives of several other travel operators and hotel owners also participated in the meeting.

The tour operators pointed out that the leisure tourists, who had already arrived from foreign countries, were quite surprised over this measure because nowhere in the world was any tax imposed on hotel rates on the printed brochure prices as in case of any other consumer products. The tour operators and travel agents could not charge the clients more because they had already entered into contracts for their packages with their counterparts.

According to Subhash Goyal, president of Indian Association of Travel Operators, the move to impose luxury tax would result in a loss of about Rs 50 crores to the State Government in the next six months and next year, about 5,000 youth might lose jobs directly and 15,000 indirectly.

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