The travel and tourism industry and government in India need to work together for the growth of the sector, the worst affected by disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Booking Holdings President and CEO Glenn D Fogel said on Wednesday.
Booking Holdings provides online travel and related services to customers and partners in over 220 countries and territories through consumer-facing brands, including Booking.com, Rentalcars.com, among others.
“The industry and the government can work together to create what’s great for the entire community…There’ll be tremendous growth in all areas of travel. There’s no part of travel that won’t grow in the long run, how fast it grows, of course will be dependent on a lot of issues, one of which is the government,” Fogel said at the virtual Economic Times Global Business Summit.
“The draft National Tourism policy 2.0 is a great start. The government recognises that it can help build up an industry,” he added.
However, the draft policy does not talk about the role of online travel agencies, he said.
“The draft of the tourism proposals doesn’t seem to be talking about people like us, the online travel agencies, which I think can add a great deal of help in bringing travel and tourism to India, so I really would like to continue to work closely with the Indian government to help make the industry incredibly big as it should be,” Fogel said.
Source: Business Standard
