Budget Expectations quotes for 2022

Rakshit Sharma - CEO and Director on Board Intellistay Hotels

Hospitality sector was the first to be affected and last to be recovered in Pandemic. Due to the prolonged impact, the hospitality industry has incurred significant losses. The Union budget should immediately look at boosting domestic tourism. For this hospitality and travel industry needs an emergency resuscitation plan starting with reduction in GST to encourage people to travel domestically. In order to support the sector further, the government should permit the corporate bookings to come under IGST. This will help the companies to avail GST input credit. Government should also offer low interest loans which will help us in recovering the losses. We are hopeful that that the Union budget will allocate sufficient resources to help the sector stronger out of these times

Sneh Jain, Managing Director and Co-Founder, The Baker’s Dozen

Year 2021 has been a dynamic and challenging year for all businesses, especially for online-first brands. And, with the budget positively inclined on policies like health and nutrition as well agriculture and allied sector, it helped the F&B industry in channelizing the importance of healthy and local produce in our consumption pattern. Similarly, I expect budget 2022 to be mindful this year too along with a significant focus on the Hospitality Industry. Besides, looking at the consistent endeavors by the government to ensure vaccination and booster shots for the fellow citizens, I am also hoping the country will collectively bring an end to the third wave which will further bring us closer to a post-Covid world, where brands are given a chance to grow geographically and strengthen the current communication gap with their consumers. Furthermore, I also foresee 2022 to be a powerful year for homegrown brands to shine globally leveraging our Prime Minister’s ‘Made in India’ campaign.

Aditi Handa, Head Chef and Co-Founder, The Baker’s Dozen

2021 has been a year of resilience. I think every industry, be it F&B or Health, has tried rowing their boats hard enough to not just to recover from the loss of 2020 or see a periodical significant growth but to work on being contingent for the near future too, and this learning curve has helped Indian businesses especially start-up brands to witness a massive surge in their consumer base. Hence, we expect the budget 2022 to be positive for all sectors to celebrate the power of resilience. Also, a supporting nudge for the hospitality industry and the SME sector is
anticipated.

Gopal Upadhayay, Co-founder of Teabox 

The Union Budget will be presented against the backdrop of the country’s third coronavirus wave—vastly significant for a prime agricultural sector like Tea, one of the largest employment-generating sectors in India. Last year, the government had emphasized the health and well-being of the workforce, especially women and children working in the estates, alongside focusing on reinvigorating human capital.

We expect the reinforcement of these policies in the sector with a clear roadmap on infrastructure development—particularly in terms of roadways, developing integrated cold chains and an integrated strategy to maximize productivity. Additionally, doubling farmers’ income will also help boost the tea industry.

Faster refund of GST input to start-ups and taxation process simplification for e-commerce companies will encourage investments in the sector. Moreover, specific measures to improve the ease of doing business in the country will help attract more FDI and stimulate production and employment generation. Focus on simplifying rules for B2C exports from India and relooking at the guidelines for FDI in the sector will also attract potential investors to this industry.

Bharat Malu, Director, Chymey

There are a lot of expectations from the 2022 budget. Startups have been hailed by the govt of India as one of the key segments that will aid the progress of the Indian economy and take it to the next era. To aid this vision we need higher allocation of funds for seed funding by investors and incubators.  Tax holidays for startup companies with under 20 cr revenue will encourage more entrepreneurs to take the plunge. A lot of the startups are now tech driven or tech enabled. If we are to host the next big tech revolution and /or create the next amazon from India then a deeper look is required at forming more Technology Parks.

Teja Chekuri, Managing Partner, Ironhill India

We would like the finance ministry to take a look at the GST regulations in the hospitality, food and beverages industry. We don't get any input but we have to pay GST to a lot of items we purchase ranging from 18 to 28% which directly impacts the margins. This has a domino effect and impacts the customers directly. The reduced margins reflect directly in the increased menu pricing which impacts customers and in turn effects the number of walk-ins.

 Mr. Vikram Agarwal, Managing Director, Cornitos 

"Past year has been a journey to revive the economy and we are optimistic that this year we would see increased demand of products. In order to be meet the overgrowing demand, we would like this year's budget to help us in getting the production cost lowered along with deduction in taxes charged on raw materials like crops, oil, and machinery."

Abhayraj Kohli, owner of tori, grandmamas cafe

GST input credit is one of the most important demands for restaurants as double taxation is hitting the already insignificant bottom line of restaurant.

Mr. Arun Bagaria, Co-Founder, TravClan

The year 2021 has been a mixed bag for the travel and tourism industry. There has been significant growth of domestic tourism across regions Platforms that enable travel businesses to adopt technology have seen great traction. For startups in the travel sector, the key is to continue to strengthen their offering and prepare for resumption of international travel in 2022. It is not a question of ‘if’ global travel movement will resume, but when and at what pace. Hence, resilience and revenue generation through domestic and local travel is going to be important. Startups that reach the other side of 2022 will stand strong and have a large market for them to capture.  

Mr. Aditya Sanghi, Co-Founder, Hotelogix

"To recover faster while making up for the loss incurred, the Indian hotel industry is expecting a lot from the upcoming Union Budget. The industry is in dire need of a well-thought-out stimulus package in terms of interest-free loans, subsidies, and lower taxes. Government must take extensive measures to promote tourism to help hotels increase occupancy in the days to come. Special attention is required towards creating more jobs while preventing further job loss in the sector."

Mr. Vineet Verma Executive Director & CEO, Brigade Hospitality.

“Hospitality & Tourism sectors have been the worst affected during this pandemic. The impact has been widespread and unfortunately expected to be long lasting. While both the Centre and State governments have tried to extend their support to some extent, the sectors need more long term resuscitation measures in order to get back on track. Reduction in GST rates to help boost larger spends, according Infrastructure status to hotels, lower interest rates on borrowings, reduction in property taxes, partial if not full waiver of other licence fees including Liquor licences, lower power tariff, are some of the boosters that our industry so desperately needs at this point of time.”

Mr. Rishi Puri, Senior Vice President Operations & Development, Lords Hotels and Resorts

More relief to breathe easy, that’s the mantra to save the day and that’s what we are looking for moving forward to beat the recent business upheaval in our hospitality industry.

We request the finance minister and government of India to go easy on taxation as far as hospitality sector is concerned. This will ease our burden and assist us in a big way to recover from the slowdown in business and restore the stability and growth of it. One way to move forward is by including sustainable schemes in the budget to promote tourism in the upcoming budget. Along with this, the government needs to consider revamping the current structure of GST and include the hotels and tourism related sectors in the infrastructure projects of the NIP, so that it can be promoted for infrastructure funding. Lastly, government needs to offer special incentives for promoting domestic tourism, this will surely turn the fortune in our favour.”

Pushpendra R Bansal, COO, Lords Hotels & Resorts

“Lords Hotels & Resorts is looking forward to a good 2022 for the hotel & travel industry with more reliefs in the Union Budget 2022. The pandemic has yet become a dampener in the year beginning with travel commerce, and we in the hotel business are looking for lower GST rates on Hotels, which will increase the occupancy of the hotels. We need more rationalization and special tax incentives, formulation of pragmatic policies, and ease of doing domestic business from the ministry of finance. This will not only be good for domestic hotel bookings but also for the economy in general. 

In spite of taking all the precautions of Covid Safety norms, our hotels have witnessed a great number of cancellation over the two months. Guests are still apprehensive to indulge in travelling and so the cancellation. At Lords we are contributing to rebuilding the growth of the country by hiring manpower, which is the need of the hour. But, still there doesn’t seem to be any sight of any reprise from the government as far as in the overall tax is concerned. We are looking for a tax friendly travel budget from the Union Budget 2022.” 

Mr. Vishal Suri, Managing Director, SOTC Travel

We look forward to the upcoming Union Budget’s consideration of further economic relief for the industry at-large with lower taxes and incentives to help boost the road to recovery.

The industry appreciates the Government’s support to enable revival and strengthen the sector for which we anticipate a complete rationalization of GST, reducing/ eliminating the TCS on outbound travel, and eliminating the 5 crore capping for the SEIS benefit.

Rationalization of tax structure will help reduce complexities and will enable the industry to focus and accelerate businesses further. Eliminating the 5 crore capping for the SEIS benefit would provide much needed impetus to post Covid revival of the tourism industry and promote employment generation.

More importantly to boost domestic travel and tourism, incentives should be offered to Corporates for organizing meetings and conference in India through partial or full tax exemptions to the corporates on the expenses incurred.

We seek assistance from the Government in enhancing the structural transformation that is needed to build a stronger, more sustainable and resilient tourism industry. We need to focus on the tourism sector as a sustainable engine for economic growth and development. The Government should reboot the tourism economy on a stronger, fairer and more sustainable footing.

Mr Shiladitya Chaudhury, Director, Platter Hospitality

We expect 2022 to be growth oriented for the F&B Sector. If the 3rd wave of Corona are well under control then we would witness new entrants in the market as well as established players expanding their wings. Apart from the new outlets, cloud kitchen and home delivery would continue to play an important role in bolstering the growth of this segment. We also have plans to open more outlets of Oudh 1590 & Chapter 2 in Kolkata in the coming year and also foray outside Bengal. Let us hope for the best.

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