The government plans to increase the number of cruise tourists to 40 lakh in five years from last year’s 1.80 lakh, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said today
Given the right impetus, the number of tourist ships visiting India can go up from the present 158 to about 955 per year, the Ports and Shipping Minister said at a special event on cruise tourism here.
Gadkari said the revenue benefit will shoot up to ₹35,500 crore in 2022 from the over ₹700 crore last year.
Speaking on the occasion, David Dingle, the chairman of Carnival UK, that controls 42 per cent of the global cruise tourism market, flagged a slew of concerns on taxation and port charges, which he said are higher by 50 per cent when compared to the developed world.
GST peeve
“Anything to do with cruising in this country must not attract any GST whatsoever. Not only it is about money, (but) in principle, the cruise industry would not come to a part of the world where it has to pay GST on the ticket price and on the sales made onboard. That does not happen,” Dingle said.
“We need to think about it as an industry operating in international waters. The place of consumption is really important. The place of consumption is almost entirely on the high seas. And for that reason alone, GST should not apply,” he said.
Calling for a withdrawal of the GST, Dingle said, “We would not bring our ships here in any significant numbers if cruising attracts any GST.”
Speaking after Dingle, Gadkari said the Ministry had not thought about GST, but assured that it will represent the case to the Ministry of Finance along with the Tourism Ministry.
The Shipping Ministry has already moved the GST Council, the highest decision making body under the recently introduced indirect tax regime, to exempt the cruise tourism sector from GST at par with other nations.
At present, cruise tourism is not taxed and the Shipping Ministry wants to keep it out of the GST regime in order to boost the industry.
Earlier, citing estimates presented by an international consultant which seem to have been used to fix the targets, Mumbai Port Trust Chairman Sanjay Bhatia had said the number of ships will go up to 955 from 158 ships.