While governments around the world have come to recognize the need for additional Covid relief for their tourism industries, India has done the opposite: It slashed the country’s tourism budget for 2021-2022 by 19 percent. Or so it appears at first glance.
Under the mantra “Atmanirbhar Bharat” or “a self sufficient India,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman released a 2021-2022 financial plan that essentially ignores India’s tourism and hospitality industry as a main pillar of recovery. Even her budget release speech is devoid of the word “tourism.”
Instead, the year’s funding allocations focus primarily on healthcare and infrastructure, to the tune of a 137 percent increase for the healthcare and wellbeing sector to…