Himachal needs to adopt tourism-friendly policies to attract visitors

Facing stiff competition from Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand, the Tourism stakeholders on Tuesday said Himachal Pradesh has to adopt tourism-friendly policies to attract more visitors.

Suffering due to mushrooming of registered and unregistered Home Stays and Bed and Breakfast units, the Shimla Hotel and Tourism Stakeholders Association has sought relief in taxes and withdrawal of heavy tax on Tourist buses and Tempo Travellers.

The failure to develop new tourist attractions in Himachal retarded the growth of tourism in the state, the President of the association M K Seth said in a release on Tuesday.

He stressed on the need to create a tourism-friendly atmosphere to retain tourists at one destination for at least three to four days.

Most of the Home Stays and Bed and Breakfast units have come up in the periphery of main tourist towns like Shimla, Manali, Dharamshala, Kasauli and others.

Meanwhile, thrust on registration of new hotels without studying the carrying capacity has become bane for the tourism industry and aggravated the problems of parking and traffic jams, he added.

The Home Stays and Bed and Breakfast units are not generating revenue for the state and are flourishing, while the genuine hotels which are paying taxes and other charges to the government are at the receiving-end and the objective of decongesting the urban areas has been defeated.

The tourism policies are made without considering the ground reality and levy of new tax on Tourist buses and Tempo Travellers has broken the back bone of the industry, which is already burdened with taxes, fees, steep hike in water and electricity charges, the statement said.