New Board created to facilitate hospitality investment
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In a bid to drive hotel development in India, the Union Government has approved the constitution of a ‘Hospitality Development and Promotion Board’ (HDPB) to facilitate the clearances required by hotel projects in a time bound manner and also provide policy advice for development of hospitality sector.
The Board’s three main functions are: to fast track approval and clearances of hotel project proposals in a time bound manner; to review the hotel project policies and to coordinate with other concerned agencies for developing guidelines that are transparent and which encourage the growth of hotel/hospitality infrastructure in the country; to interact with Government, non-Governmental and Industry bodies to increase the hospitality infrastructure in the country.
State governments have been advised to set up regional boards to serve the same purpose within their jurisdiction.
This is good news for the hotel industry which, as a collective, has been pushing the government for an entity of this kind for the last 12 months.
While the decision will be considered a victory for industry lobbyists, it remains to be seen how effective the HDPB will actually be in affecting change along the lines of its stated objectives.
According to HVS India, the Board will have to feature representatives from the finance ministry which controls budgets and taxes that affect the hotel sector, the foreign ministry which has control over visa approvals which effect the tourist arrivals and the urban development ministry which affects development controls.
Manav Thadani, Managing Director at HVS India, said; “If the HDPB has been set up with representatives from these three ministries then I see some real merit and hope.
None the less it is encouraging that the tourist ministry is actually thinking along the right lines as this sector has huge potential for growth and employment generation.”
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