Revoke int’l travel restrictions and extend free e-Visa for two years: FAITH

The Federation of Associations of Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH) has urged the government to revoke all travel restrictions with immediate effect and allow commercial scheduled airlines to resume operations, as usual, to help the travel, tourism, and hospitality sector in the country which is battered by the two-year-long border closure to survive and revive.

FAITH in its statement has said that as the Omicron scare is receding, a lot of countries of the world have already announced their opening of borders for international travel for vaccinated travellers. India, it says, cannot delay the reopening any further.

The Indian inbound travel and outbound travel industry have been shut for the past 23 months. In the pre-Covid year of 2019 -20 Indian travel industry had received almost 10.9 mn foreign tourists and almost USD30 bn (INR 2.12 lakh crores) in revenue and was engaged in travel planning for almost 26.9 mn outbound travellers from India. Both the lines of businesses have been completely closed, rendering huge distress, unemployment, and financial burden on employees and enterprises of the Indian travel industry in the absence of that work, FAITH said.


FAITH also wants the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India to take up the matter with the Ministry of Health and expedite the announcement of opening up of borders and resumption of full commercial flights with zero quarantine to fully vaccinated travellers across all Indian ports.

While doing so, FAITH wants the government to extend the 5 lakh free e-Visa extended till March 31, 2024. It also wants the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India to embark on an aggressive marketing campaign across all digital, print, electronic, and OOH media in all global markets of India to promote the Incredible India brand.