Mumbai, Mar 13 (Agency) Even as the uncertainties over the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and rising inflation continues to impact the tourism and hospitality industry, state-run hospitality firm ITDC is expecting a 10-15 per cent growth in FY2023, aided by a rise in domestic travel, a senior company official said. Speaking to UNI, India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) Director (Commercial and Marketing) Piyush Tiwari said the proposed asset monetisation of eight of its properties is on track. ITDC, a PSU under the Tourism Ministry, runs hotels, restaurants at various places for tourists, besides opertaing duty free shops at sea ports, providing transport facilities, engineering services and online ticketing. “India is in a better position from a domestic tourism perspective and it is growing. Therefore, we have to be focused on domestic tourism currently because international travel is going to take time to revive to pre-Covid levels,” Tiwari said.
He noted that even though the inflation might have an impact, but it will be very minor. “When we speak from domestic tourism stand point, people have been locked up in their homes and now want to venture out and travel…revenge tourism, as it is called. This will drive the growth of the hospitality and tourism industry, at least for the next one year,” Tiwari added. Stating that ITDC’s hospitality division is the largest contributor to its revenues, he said the growth was impacted in 2020-21 due to the pandemic. “However, our focus on growing other verticals has paid off well and we managed to sail through the tough times in the current fiscal. Now with the revival of the economy, we are hopeful to grow by 10-15 per cent in FY2023,” he added. Tiwari added that the event industry which had been badly impacted by the pandemic in the last two years, will see a come back, though in a hybrid format.
“The pandemic has given rise to hybrid events and people are preferring hybrid events. I feel, the hybrid event concept is going to remain there even in the future. Domestic events are going to be on a rise because domestic tourism is reviving and so will the event industry. This will also give a boost to the hotels business,” Tiwari added. When asked about the asset monetisation plan of the Ashok hotels as announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Tiwari said the plan is at discussion and finalisation stage. The present network of ITDC consists of four Ashok Group of Hotels, four joint venture hotels, seven transport units part of the travel & tourism infrastructure, 14 duty free shops at seaports, one sound and light show and four catering outlets.
The government has decided to lease out the Ashok 5-star hotel in Delhi and the adjacent Hotel Samrat, as well as six other ITDC properties, to private operators as part of its ambitious target of monetising “under-utilised” public sector assets. “The report (on asset monetisation) has been submitted by the consultant appointed by DIPAM and the process will start post the approval of competent authority. We feel Ashok is a kind of property that is very magnificent and will attract a lot of investors. It is one of its kind and there are very less properties of this stature as Ashok, in India,” he said adding the aim of the asset monetisation is to maximize revenue from the available assets.