Ahead of festive season, travelers stay put as tourism industry gasps for breath

New delhi: As Coronavirus infections across the country continue to set new records with the numbers only expected to rise in the winter months, leisure travel might be the last thing on one's mind this season. As a result, the travel and tourism industry has taken a fatal beating in terms of lack of passenger demand, fear of infection and several travel restrictions in place.

Several tour and travel agents across the city rue the loss of business in the sector that they say has been the worst-hit and might remain so for the longest time.

Anubhav Dora, owner of Outdoor Monks which deals with adventure travel, said that besides the hesitation among customers due to the virus, a lot of the hill stations in Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh remain out of bounds for trekkers due to resistance from members of the local community. "They think people from the cities will bring the infection to the place hence we have been unable to access these locations".

Dora added that he has had to lay off most of the guides attached to his company as the restrictions on both domestic and international travel came to a standstill during lockdown. "There is talk of demand among travelers for Goa so we hope that traffic somewhat picks up," he said.

Abhilash Bisht, who runs White Magic Adventure Travel, claimed that there was a lot of confusion in government guidelines regarding travel which further prompted a muted response from travelers.

"After seeing the dismal response post-lockdown, our company has modified the packages and itinerary while offering discounts in order to gather demand," Bisht said.

The Indian travel and tourism industry will face an overall loss of around $16.7 billion with up to 50 million direct and indirect jobs at risk while the global travel industry is set to lose around $2.7 trillion this year with around 100 million jobs at stake, according to a report published in June by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Grant Thornton.

Rajiv Mehra, Vice-President of Indian Association of Tour Operators estimated that with around 50% of the tourism companies operating, around 75% of their staff have been affected in addition to the other people indirectly employed through the profession like tour guides, transport owners, aviation sector and hotels. "There is still some work on the weekends but people mostly go to nearby areas by their own car and don't want to book a travel package through our companies," Mehra said.

Meanwhile, President of Travel Agents Association of India, Jyoti Mayal, said those who are travelling out of the city are only doing so for essential purposes or in order to take a short break from their lockdown woes. " The masses have been stuck inside their houses for close to seven months so some of them plan impromptu trips just to freshen themselves up," she said. "The main challenge lies with building customer confidence as a lot of them are skeptical as to whether health precautions will be there at their place of destination".

Mayal said the association has written multiple times to the Tourism Industry highlighting their state of affairs but they are yet to receive a concrete response.